


fractured reflections

by vvelna



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Parallel Universes, Supernatural Elements, supernatural everything tbh, transported to a different world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-05-02 16:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 36,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14548767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vvelna/pseuds/vvelna
Summary: Dan and Phil wake up in strange parallel worlds inhabited by unusual people who call themselves ghosts. They are determined to find a way to reunite.





	1. Chapter 1

Dan woke up. He couldn’t see anything, and the ground was strangely damp beneath him.

Why wasn’t he in bed?

He sat up and tried to look around. Gradually his eyes adjusted, and he was able to make out some shapes. Tall columns surrounded him, reaching up into the sky with a crisscrossing latticework between them. Moonlight was filtering through to the ground below.

They were trees. It was some kind of forest. His heart started to race. He had no idea why he was outside or where he could possibly be. The last thing he could remember was lying in bed with some space between him and Phil, because it was too hot a night to be comfortable with any part of them touching.

Was he dreaming? It didn’t feel like one. There was too much clarity. It was chilly, and the ground was hard beneath him. His surroundings were shadowy and indistinct, but they were lacking the faded edges and hazy blind spots of a dream.

It wasn’t a dream, but it was still a nightmare. He was lost and alone in a dark forest that spread out as far as he could see. He was going to get murdered by Slenderman, or wild cannibals, or giant flesh-eating moths.

Dan squeezed his eyes shut and inhaled deeply. Held the breath for five seconds. Exhaled slowly. He repeated this three times and then opened his eyes.

Nope. He was still freaking out.

He got to his feet. It was hard to orient himself in space when he could barely see where his body ended and the darkness began. He started moving forward slowly, hands out in front to feel for trunks and branches before he could collide with them.

He wanted to call out for Phil, to see if he was there too, but he was afraid of making any noise. What if someone—or something—was out there, waiting and listening?

He heard a noise. Footsteps? Snapping branches? It was so brief he couldn’t tell what it was or what direction it had come from. He barely suppressed a scream, letting out a whimper instead.

“Fuck shitting motherfucking shit fuck…” he muttered under his breath.

There was another noise, louder this time. And closer. The unmistakable sound of something moving swiftly through the underbrush. He felt all of his muscles tense up.

Dan started running, stumbling through the darkness. It felt like his heart was beating so hard it was moving his entire body, driving him onwards. His breathing was quick and shallow. Brambles and branches scraped at his body, but he kept going, completely overcome by panic.

There didn’t seem to be any discernable path he could follow through the trees. He had no idea where he was going.

Soon his throat was raw and his calves were burning. His tired feet caught on a tree root, and he fell face forward, barely getting his hands out in front of him in time to stop himself from fully face-planting.

He couldn’t hear anyone approaching over the pounding of the blood in his head, but he did see the ball of light coming closer through the trees.

He scrambled backward a bit. It took some time for his eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness.

It was a person holding up a lantern. At least he thought it was a person. They were the right height and shape to be a human, but the shadows thrown by the light of the lantern gave their face a ghoulish appearance.

Dan didn’t even care if they’d come to murder him. He was so tired of running.

The person stepped forward and reached out to help him to his feet. He took their hand and allowed himself to be helped. They kept holding it after he was standing.

“Come with me, dear. Let’s get you out of here.”

They led him by the hand through the trees. He kept his eyes on his feet so as not to trip, and let the stranger take care of the rest. He felt like a child holding one of his parent’s hands and being led through a crowd.

“Almost there.”

Dan looked up and saw that the trees were thinning up ahead. Soon they were in a large clearing. Three other people were there, sitting around a fire. They stood up and walked over to him and his guide.

They all looked like regular people, with the exception of their unnatural skin colors. He could now see that the one who’d led him there had bright red skin, another’s was lemon yellow, the next one’s pale blue, and the fourth’s a deep purple.

The red one let go of his hand for a moment and set the lantern on the ground.

“I’m June,” they said, taking both his hands in theirs and smiling warmly. “Welcome to Ghost Outpost #416.”

Ghost?

“Am I in Hell?” Dan asked.

June laughed and let go of his hands.

“No dear, this isn’t the afterlife. We’re not that kind of ghost. Don’t worry.”

The yellow one spoke up next.

“Hell is a state of mind,” they said, stepping forward and pulling him into a firm handshake. “My name is Fog.”

“I’m Ash,” said the blue one, then gestured at the purple one and said, “This is Shrub.”

Dan wanted to ask if they were joking but decided against it.

They were all more or less the same height—a few heads shorter than him—but their body types varied. June was fat, while Fog was intimidatingly brawny. Ash was slimmer than June but not muscular like Fog, and Shrub was very thin.

None of them had any hair on their heads. They were all dressed in what looked like large burlap sacks, coming down to right above their knees. There were holes at the top for their heads and arms. On their feet they wore shapeless boots. Dan thought it was kind of fashionable. Sort of. Would have been better in black. Maybe he was just delirious.

“And your name is…?” prompted June.

“Oh. It’s Daniel. You can call me Dan. I’m Dan.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up and into some clothes, Dan,” said June.

It was only then that he realized he was in his underwear, which is what he’d worn to bed. There was mud running up his legs from his ankles to his thighs. His feet and hands were filthy.

Ash and June led him into a long building where there were three showers stalls. He stood in one and June followed him in to turn on the water. Then they grabbed the detachable shower head, angled it down at the floor, stepped out of the stall, and handed it to Ash.

“You can keep your underwear on if you want, dear,” said June. “But it is pretty mucky.”

Dan took it off. He was too exhausted to care that two strangers were seeing him naked.

Ash lifted up the shower head and pointed it at him. They flipped a switch on the side of the nozzle to increase the water pressure, and powerful jets shot out. He barely felt them hitting him and didn’t even flinch at how cold the water was. His brain and body weren’t really on the same page just then.

Once Dan was clean, or at least no longer covered in mud, they briskly dried him off with some towels. Then June left the room and came back with a bundle of clothing—his very own sack-dress, a pair of loose black shorts, and some formless boots.

“These are the biggest size we’ve got,” said June, lifting one of his feet to slide it into a boot. “They’re fairly stretchy though, so it should be okay.”

They ushered him back outside where Shrub and Fog were waiting. His mind felt clearer, like the cold water had rebooted it.

“Hey, have you seen another guy?” he asked. “A little shorter than me? Black hair, really pale, blue eyes?”

“No,” said Fog and June in unison. Ash and Shrub shook their heads.

Dan felt like he was going to skyrocket right back up to the edge of panic. What if Phil was out there all alone? Phil, who would probably run face first into a tree, or trip and crack his head open. Phil, who if he was in the same predicament, was probably wandering around half naked and maybe without his glasses. Phil, who couldn’t find his way out of a forest with a well-marked path, signposts, and a map.

He turned around and starting walking toward the trees. Fog followed him briskly and stood in front of him, blocking his way.

“I need to go get Phil.”

“You can’t go back into the woods,” said Fog.

“You don’t understand. He won’t be able to find his way out. I need to go get him.”

He tried to walk around Fog, but they just moved over and put a hand to his chest to push him back gently.

“He’s not in there, Dan,” said Ash from behind him. “When someone new approaches, the beacon lights up.”

They pointed overhead to a small bulb made of red glass that was affixed to the roof of the building with the showers. It was dark.

“The beacon lit up once tonight. That’s how June knew to go look for you. But it was a single flash. If your friend was here, it would have flashed twice.”

“First time it’s lit up in ages,” said June.

Dan wasn’t completely convinced, but his impulse to run back into the woods was less intense.

“He might be up North,” continued June.

“Up North?” asked Dan, wondering if they somehow knew Phil.

“June means the other side,” said Fog. “We call it North, but it’s not really north, any more than this is South. There are no real fixed directions in the universe. Who’s to say what’s up and down, north and south?”

Dan was on the verge of tears. He had no idea what was going on or what anyone was talking about. He just wanted to go home and crawl into bed, to wrap his arms around Phil and never let go of him again.

“You’re confusing him,” Shrub said quietly

Fog kept talking, putting their hands on Dan’s shoulders and guiding him away from the trees.

“Think of it like this, Dan. Say there’s a mirror, or even just a piece of glass. We’re on one side of the glass. We call it South. But on the other side of the glass, aka North, there is another Ghost Outpost #416 where your friend may be.”

“So it’s like…parallel worlds?”

“Exactly. Were you with your friend before you arrived here?”

“I think so.”

“Then I bet he’s over there. Everything has to be in balance. If you ended up here, someone ended up there.”

“Okay, but how do I get to him? Can you show me?”

“No, you can’t go there. But we can show you how to contact him.”

Fog looked over at the slowly dying fire.

“Not right now. It’s late. You need to sleep. We all need to sleep. Tomorrow.”

Dan wanted to protest, to demand they showed him how to contact Phil immediately, but at the mere mention of the word sleep he could feel his whole body turning to jelly. So he let himself be led into a glorified box the ghosts called a cabin. There was nothing there but a bed that was definitely not long enough and a pile of blankets and other linens in the corner. He passed out the second his head hit the flat, somewhat smelly pillow.


	2. Chapter 2

Phil woke up with an awful headache. Coffee. He needed coffee. He rolled over and reached for his glasses on the nightstand, but his hand met empty air. There was no nightstand.

His glasses were on the floor, and he was sleeping in a too-small bed under an old quilt that smelled a bit like sour milk. He was very far from home and he was alone, except for the strangers outside the tiny shoebox cabin he’d spent the night in.

The headache quickly became secondary to the pain in his chest. He felt like he’d been kicked there and in his stomach. Memories of the night before bombarded him all at once.

*

He’d woken up freezing and wet. Dressed in only his pajama bottoms, and thankfully, his glasses. The sun was setting and he was lying on a large rock, in the middle of a choppy sea.

Phil had thought it was just a nightmare at first, but the smell of the saltwater was so intense, and the water so cold, lapping at his feet as the surface area of exposed rock got smaller.

He wiped his glasses on his pants. His hands were shaking so much he was afraid he’d drop them. When they were safely back on his face, he looked around.

His heart sank. There was land in the distance, with what looked like trees crowding the shore, but it was so far away. He wasn’t exactly an Olympic swimmer, and even if he was, he’d never make it through the turbulent, frigid waters to the green blur in the distance.

He rotated carefully around on his butt, and from all other sides the only thing he saw was the sea, stretching out infinitely.

The water was rising higher. Phil pulled his legs in tight to his chest, but there wasn’t enough space to keep himself out of the water.

Just looking out at the vast, churning waves made him feel seasick. He squeezed his eyes shut and put his head between his knees.

“Wake up,” he muttered. “Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

Phil didn’t wake up, but he didn’t drown at sea either. Above the sound of the waves he heard a voice call out.

That had been June, coming to rescue him in a little wooden dinghy. June the ghost. At least they called themselves ghosts. There were four of them. They looked just like people except for the unusual hues of their skin.

Once they’d helped him into the boat, June had wrapped him in a blanket. They’d said something else to him, but Phil couldn’t remember any of it because he was so cold his body and mind were numb.

June rowed them back to shore, seemingly unfazed by the strength of the sea. They tied the boat to a rotting dock in the shallows, and helped him step out and steady himself on dry land. Then he followed them like a zombie into the woods.

The sun had all but disappeared at that point, but June had grabbed a lantern from the boat and led Phil safely through the trees. They kept a hand on his arm the whole time as if he might wander off. And he might have, not because he wanted to, but because he could still hear the waves, and the only thing he could see was his feet, pale white and almost luminous against the black mud they were passing over. Everything else around him was drowned out by the droning in his head.

They got to a camp—the Ghost Outpost #416, June called it—and he was rushed through introductions to the three other ghosts who were sitting around a large fire pit, and then pulled into one of the buildings behind it.

Inside, June and another one of the ghosts—the blue one, Ash—stripped him of his pajama bottoms, vigorously attacked him with towels, gave him a pair of black shorts and a strange dress like the ones they were all wearing, and wrapped him in about five blankets.

Then they dragged him back out of the cabin and made him sit close to the fire on a bench made from a split log.

“Soup?” said a voice to his left.

It was the purple ghost, Shrub, holding out a bowl and a big chunk of bread. Phil didn’t think he had much of an appetite, but his stomach growled loudly in disagreement.

After he ate, the ghosts had tried to explain to him where he was, and who they were. The more they told him the less he understood. They apparently could offer no explanation as to how or why he had ended up there.

Eventually he couldn’t take it anymore.

“I just want to go to sleep, please. Can I go to sleep?”

He was embarrassed by how shaky his voice was, by the way he could feel his bottom lip quivering when he asked and the tears he could feel threatening to overflow.

They’d let him sleep. Showed him into a tiny cabin and left him alone. He’d laid down in the rickety little bed and fallen into a black void of dreamless sleep almost instantly.

*

He would have loved to have stayed in that void for longer. He would have loved to have woken up back in his big, warm bed, safe at home in London, with his big, warm boyfriend beside him.

He was so afraid. More than he’d ever been in his life. What if he was never able to go home again? What if he never saw his family again? Or his friends? Or _Dan?_

The last thing Phil wanted to do was leave the cabin. He dreaded being among unfamiliar people in an unfamiliar place. But he really did need coffee to function, and he’d never get home if he stayed in bed.

In the daylight he could see the camp properly. The fire pit was the first thing that greeted you when you came out of the the woods. It was surrounded by split log benches. Behind the fire pit, arranged in a semicircle, were six tiny one-room cabins, one of which he had slept in the night before. Further back behind those, were two longer buildings.

One housed the toilets and shower stalls, and later he would learn that the other contained the kitchen and the “storage room,” where all manner of supplies and objects were haphazardly piled like trash at a garbage dump. There was running water but no electricity. The kitchen had no stove—just sinks, a pantry, and counters to prepare food. Everything had to be cooked outside over the fire.

To the left of the camp, a narrow path led into a copse of trees. He couldn’t see where it ended, as it went round several bends. Behind the bathroom and kitchen buildings, the woods picked up again. A formidable wall of trees rose up the steady incline of a hill. To the right they also encroached, curving around the camp so that it was nestled in its little clearing.

The whole setup was rather claustrophobic, with a distinct dystopian or post-apocalyptic vibe. Phil decided that he really wasn’t a post-apocalyptic kind of guy.

Someone must have been up already that morning, because there was a small fire already lit with a small grill rack set up over the low flames.

Phil was looking out at the trees with his back to the camp when he heard a door slam.

Fog had just come out of their cabin.

“Good morning,” he said, a bit nervously.

Though he had only just met them, so far he found Fog to be the most intimidating of the ghosts. And not just because of the muscles.

Fog nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. A few moments later they returned with a box of instant coffee packets, a kettle, two chipped mugs, and a beat-up box of cereal. The cardboard was so worn and crumpled he couldn’t tell what brand or kind it was.

Phil tried to keep himself from looking too eager as Fog boiled water for the coffee.

“You look like a coffee drinker,” they said, passing him one of the mugs when it was ready.

“I am,” he said, not really knowing what looking like a coffee drinker meant. “Thank you.”

Fog reached into the cereal box, pulled out a handful of cereal, and tossed it into their mouth. They passed the box to Phil.

He reached in to get a handful for himself. He felt a bit awkward, eating cereal straight from the box with a stranger, but he figured he’d have to get used to feeling awkward and anxious about a lot of things in his current situation.

The cereal was very stale and the no-fun, healthy kind that didn’t appeal to him, but he ate it anyway.

They ate the cereal and drank their coffee without speaking for several minutes.

“If you want something more substantial,” said Fog, after finishing off their second cup, “Ash and June should be up within the next hour, and one of them might cook something.”

“That’s alright,” said Phil. “This is fine.”

He didn’t want to trouble his hosts any more than he had to.

He finished his coffee and decided he’d had his fill of cereal. He had no idea what he was going to do next. What he _could_ do next. Of course he wanted to get back home, but he didn’t know how, or if it was even possible. If he just kept sitting there, maybe it would happen on its own.

Fog stood and began gathering up the things they’d brought from the kitchen.

They reached over and took the empty mug right out of Phil’s hand and said, “Your friend left you a message.”

Phil’s head shot up.

“What? What friend?”

“Dan. He’s down South.”

Phil’s mind started racing. Dan was here? His Dan?

“What did he say? Where is he? Is he okay?”

Fog seemed unbothered by the urgency in his voice.

“I’ll take you down to the pond, and you can see what he wrote yourself. You can write back to him there, but you won’t be able to go to where he is.”

Just then Phil didn’t mind if writing to Dan was all he could do. Of course he wanted to hear Dan’s voice, to see him, touch him. But anything was better than nothing.

The minute he had to wait while Fog was putting things away in the kitchen was agony. Finally they emerged and headed toward the little path through the trees to the left of the camp, waving for Phil to follow. He did his best to keep his urge to sprint down the path in check. They weren’t walking at a leisurely pace by any means, but it still felt painfully slow. His heart was going much faster.

The trees ended and they walked into a little clearing, with a pond in the center of it. Beside the pond where several large wooden crates, overflowing with smooth white stones about the size of the palm of Phil’s hand.

Phil followed Fog down to the pond, wondering where this message from Dan was supposed to be. Then he saw it. Floating on the surface of the water, by the edge where they were standing, was a single leaf. It was the same size as the stones, and inscribed on its surface was a message in handwriting he’d recognize anywhere.

- _Phil, it’s Dan-_

It’s Dan. _It’s Dan._

It was Dan!

Phil sank to his knees and fished the leaf out of the water. He held it delicately, like it was a precious, priceless artifact.

He’d forgotten all about Fog and was startled when they spoke.

“I’m going to tell you how to write back now, so listen carefully. There are rules, and you need to do it right.”

It was hard to tear his eyes away from the leaf. He was afraid it would disappear if he stopped looking at it. But he needed to give Fog his full attention.

They bent down beside one of the crates of white stones, pulling one out to show him. There was a chunky permanent marker stuck in the ground beside the crate, and they grabbed that too.

“This is where you write your message,” said Fog, tapping the stone with the marker. “I’m not going to waste this one by writing anything on it. I’m assuming you don’t need a demonstration.”

Phil nodded.

“Now, here are the rules. You can only write ten letters per stone. Go wild with punctuation. But no more than ten letters, or the message won’t go through. Choose your words wisely.”

They handed Phil the stone. He reluctantly put the leaf down on the ground.

“These are a finite resource. We can get more than what is here, but it’d be a hassle. I’m not going to give you an exact limit, since you’ll be the only one using them, but if you use them all up right away, you might have to wait a while for more.”

Phil just kept nodding. Yes, he would control himself. Somehow, he would resist the impulse to write to Dan constantly, every second of every day. Somehow.

“When you’ve written your message, just drop the stone into the pond.”

“That’s it? And it’ll get to him?”

“That’s it. This is a two-way pond. Within the water is a shared space, where you can both exist at the same time. These stones are the only thing that can travel all the way through to the other side.”

Apparently Fog’s explanation was finished, because they stood up abruptly and began walking back up the path to camp. Phil didn’t fully understand what they’d meant by calling the pond a space “where both of you can exist at the same time.” Did that mean he could dive into the pond and they’d be underwater together? The pond wasn’t very big. He couldn’t tell how deep it was either, as the water was quite murky.

Phil took the marker and thought about what to write. There were so many things he wanted to say. He’d have to start with something simple. When he’d decided on the message, he counted out the letters on his fingers, and then printed it as carefully as he could on the stone’s surface.

It wasn’t exactly poetry but it would do.

-I’m here-

He dropped it into the pond and waited.

Nothing happened.

He let a minute pass, just staring at the surface of the water.

Maybe he’d done something wrong? Or maybe Dan just wasn’t sitting there, staring at the pond on his side. Phil wasn’t going to leave until he saw another leaf. He could wait.

Finally, something started to happen. The surface of the pond began to bubble, just a bit, and a leaf floated to the top and drifted over to him. He was so excited he clapped his hands in glee before reaching down to pluck it out of the water.

- _you ok?-_

He grabbed another stone and wrote back immediately.

-Yes. You?-

- _yes. miss you-_

-Miss you-

 


	3. Chapter 3

Whoever woke up first would write “morning” on a stone and drop it into the pond, and when the other woke up, they’d send a “morning” back. They did the same thing in the evening, sending “good night” stones before they went to sleep. Bookending their days like that was nice, and it also helped relieve some of the constant anxiety of not knowing if the other was still there and okay.

All of the ghosts seemed to have designated chores. Shrub did the cleaning. They scrubbed (Shrubbed?) the bathroom and kitchen, swept and tidied the cabins, and took care of all the laundry. Since there was no electricity, this involved taking it all out back behind the buildings and handwashing it in a large metal basin, with a washboard and handwringer. Then they’d hang everything up on a clothesline stretched between two trees.

Fog gathered all the wood for the fire. They’d disappear into the woods and come back with armloads of kindling. Sometimes they’d come back dragging logs from smaller fallen trees, then chop them up and split them at a pace that Dan thought was really just unnecessarily showing-off.

June and Ash did all the cooking. That wasn’t as impressive as it sounded, since ninety percent of the food came out of cans. There was also a freezer in the kitchen from which they occasionally unearthed loaves of bread to thaw and bags of frozen vegetables to heat up. Dan kept his distance from the bread. Sure, it didn’t have any visible mold, but fuck knows how long it’d been in that freezer.

Dan didn’t just sit around letting the ghosts do all the work. He pitched in wherever he could. Most often he helped Shrub with the cleaning. There was something calming about mopping the bathroom floor while Shrub scrubbed the toilets, both of them working in comfortable silence.

Fog wouldn’t let him help with gathering wood.

“You’ll slow me down or get lost.”

They tried to teach him how to split wood, but after a few attempts in which he completely missed with the axe, they took it from him and said, “Perhaps you would be more useful elsewhere.”

At least June let him start the fires. Mostly they used matches, sometimes ripping pages out of old books or throwing magazines in to light first. They also had some lighter fluid, but used it sparingly.

When they weren’t doing chores, the ghosts all relaxed in their own ways. June and Fog were talkers. June was bubbly and excitable, while Fog was brusque and usually very composed, but they’d get into heated debates about all kinds of things. Would it rain that day or the next? How much toilet paper was too much toilet paper to use considering they didn’t have an infinite supply? Was tap dancing a legitimate art form? (Surprisingly, Fog was the one arguing in favor of tap dancing being recognized as art.)

Ash spent most of their downtime reading. There were a lot of books—mostly cheap paperbacks—and magazines in the storage room. They kept a rusty fold-up beach chair in their cabin, and would bring it out and set it up in the clearing whenever they got the chance. There they’d read, and more often than not, eventually doze off.

Shrub was a knitter. They were apparently making the world’s longest scarf. It was definitely longer than Dan was tall, but they showed no signs of stopping. Maybe they were just going to work on it until there was absolutely no yarn left to knit with. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to color choice and no discernible pattern. When they finished one skein they went to the storage room and came back with another.

As for Dan, he popped down to the pond every chance he got to send Phil a message or see if there was one waiting for him. The constraints on their communication meant that they mostly just traded references to inside jokes and memes—anything they thought would make the other laugh.

When he wasn’t helping out around the camp or talking with Phil, Dan had way too much time on his hands. No internet, no video games, no TV, no music…He spent a lot of time alone with his thoughts. Often he would just lie on the floor in his cabin (easier to stretch out there than in the bed) and just stare at the ceiling. He’d get lost for hours sometimes. The existential nightmares of his old reality—questions about his purpose and the meaning of life and who he wanted to be—paled in comparison to the complete upending of everything he had believed to be true or possible.

Phil could’ve helped ground him, if he’d been there beside him. Dropping stones in a pond was a poor substitute for what they used to have.

Once he tried to find some reading material, thinking he could pass the time like Ash. The only books easily accessible to him in the storage room heap were ones written in French or German. The magazines weren’t much better. They were in English at least, but mind-numbingly boring. He could only read so many articles like “The Best Kitchen Appliances to Buy in February” and “Which Shaving Cream Best Suits Your Personality?” How Ash managed to seem so engrossed in them was an unsolvable mystery. Maybe they kept the good shit in their cabin.

Dan also spent a lot of time coming up with ideas for videos. He had no idea if he’d ever get to make one again, but if he did, he’d be more than ready.

*

One afternoon, about a week after his arrival in ghostland, Dan was preparing to stroll down to the pond for a quick chat with Phil. Ash was sitting in their beach chair, an old hardcover in hand, giggling.

“Dan, come here a sec, you have to see this.”

Dan walked over, curious but wary.

“This is hilarious,” said Ash, pointing at a page in the book.

It was a full-page engraving of a fat little spaniel, upside down with its head in an empty glass vase. The look on the dog’s face was admittedly comical. Flowers were scattered around the vase and, inexplicably, a chicken was regarding the dog rather unsympathetically from the corner of the illustration. Underneath the picture, a caption read: _Le chien regrette sa décision._

Dan was confused.

“The dog…regrets—”

“The dog regrets his decision,” Ash translated.

They started laughing again.

“Okay, but what does it mean? What’s the context?”

“Who cares about context?” said Ash. “It’s a funny little French dog regretting his life choices while a chicken judges him.”

Dan looked at the picture again. For some reason, the longer he looked at it, the funnier it became. If only he had access to the internet. He could have pioneered a new meme.

“Here,” said Ash, ripping the page out of the book, “keep it.”

“Thanks. I’ll treasure it always.”

He slipped the drawing under the door of his cabin to deal with later, and then made his way to the pond.

*

Dan was thinking about what to write when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned his head to see Ash approaching. Did they have more drawings to show him?

“Did anyone tell you can put your hand in the water?” they asked.

“What? No.”

Ash sighed and rolled their eyes.

“Fog should’ve told you when they explained how the stones work.”

They sat down beside him at the edge of the pond.

“If you both put your hands in the water, you can touch. You can’t reach all the way through to the other side, but there’s an overlap between North and South in the water.”

Buzzing with excitement, Dan thrust his hand into the pond. He moved it around, back and forth, closing and opening his fist. There was nothing there.

“I don’t feel anything,” he said, crestfallen already.

“Of course you don’t. Your friend has to put his hand in there too.”

“Oh! But how will he know to do that?”

“Write him a message!” said Ash, laughing.

That was obvious. Dan felt a little stupid. The prospect of being able to touch Phil, even if it was just his hand, was so thrilling he couldn’t think straight.

“I’ll give you some privacy,” they said, heading off.

He reached for a stone and wrote his request.

-put hand in-

Hopefully that would make sense to Phil. Dan didn’t want to waste more stones unless he had to.

He stuck his hand in again and waited.

There was nothing. Phil was probably away from the pond. He hadn’t replied, after all. Dan was about to give up and pull his hand out of the water, when he felt familiar fingers lace together with his.

He hadn’t realized until that moment that a small part of him had been afraid that the person he’d been communicating with for days wasn’t really Phil. It could have been an imposter. It could have been just a cruel trick the ghosts were playing on him. For all he knew, there was no “North,” and everything he’d been told was a lie.

Dan fully believed now. It was Phil. He could tell. Not just by the shape and feel of his hands, but by something else he couldn’t explain. He just knew.


	4. Chapter 4

Phil had a dream.

He was in the woods, sitting up amongst the highest branches of a towering tree. The sky was pink with bloody streaks of red, as the sun set over the sea behind him.

Looking down, he saw someone walking through the trees. It made his stomach drop to see how far up he was, but he kept his eyes open. It seemed important to keep watching the figure below.

They weren’t walking quickly or with any sense of urgency—just strolling, really. Then Phil saw something else weaving through the trees. Something blurry and indistinct was stalking the person.

Phil wanted to call out to them. He wanted to warn them that they were being followed, or maybe scare off the thing doing the following by shouting. No sound would come out of his mouth.

It was closing the distance between them. The figure was still oblivious. They stopped and looked around, as if taking in the scenery. The thing stopped too. It was only a short distance behind them now. It crouched and slunk forward, step by step. Phil knew it was getting ready to pounce. A blanket of overwhelming dread enveloped him.

Then the person looked skyward, and Phil saw who it was. He was looking down at his own upturned face. The other Phil met his eyes and his face lit up in recognition. Just as he looked like he was about to say something, the thing following him lunged, and he was engulfed by its dark mass.

Without thinking, Phil took his hands off the branch, as if he could reach out and touch the other Phil. The last thing he noticed before he plunged forward into space, was that his hands were not his own. They were Dan’s.

*

It was the middle of the night and he was alone in the dark. The four walls of the little cabin were pressing in close around him. Rolling over, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to fall back asleep. He couldn’t shake off the fear or escape the feeling that at any second he would start falling again.

*

Phil stumbled down the path to the pond, lantern in hand. The sound of his own feet snapping twigs made him jump. The thing he’d watched himself get attacked by in his dream could be real and it could be anywhere.

At the pond he dropped a stone in and waited. On it he had only written one word.

-Nightmare-

There was no way Dan was awake, or that he was waiting at the pond at that very moment. That’s what Phil thought, but he was wrong. Dan couldn’t sleep either.

- _I’m here. hand_ -

He fell back asleep like that, lying on his stomach with his hand in the water, holding Dan’s.

*

When Phil woke up again in the morning, his neck was sore from being twisted to the side for hours, and the fingers on the hand he’d had in the pond were shriveled like raisins. Dan wasn’t holding his hand anymore, but when he sat up Phil saw a good morning leaf floating on the surface of the pond. He dropped his reply in and headed back up the path to the camp.

Fog was sitting alone by the fire pit. When he got close they handed him a hot cup of coffee.

“How did you know I’d be awake?”

“You left your cabin door open, and you weren’t inside. I figured you’d gotten up and took a walk down to the pond and would be back soon enough.”

He sat down and sipped his coffee. Fog passed over a box of cereal. Phil was growing worryingly accustomed to its staleness and lack of flavor. If he ever got back home, the cereal there would probably make him cry with joy.

Not if, he scolded himself. When he got back home.

As he was chewing up his flakes of cardboard, he remembered something he’d been wondering about for a while.

“Fog, where does this food come from?”

He didn’t suppose there was a Tesco hidden away in the woods somewhere.

“June said it’s always been here. There was much more at the start, of course, and we’ll run out eventually.”

“June told you?”

Fog went on to explain that June was the first one of the four ghosts to arrive at the outpost. That they lived there for a while, by themself, before Ash showed up. Later, Fog and Shrub arrived on the same day.

It was difficult for Phil to picture June living there alone. They were so outgoing. Always talking, always moving about from one person to the next. Just the other day they’d engaged him in a forty-five minute conversation about aliens. Imagining June and Ash living at the outpost alone was also weird. Most of the conversations they had together were one-sided. Ash said about seven words for every seventy of June’s.

“But where were you all before? Do you remember where you used to live?”

“No. None of us remember. And that’s good. This is where we are now. Nostalgia is deadly.”

Fog got up and stretched, arms up above their head.

“I’m going to gather some wood now,” they said and walked into the woods.

*

Phil did his best to help out around the camp. June tried to teach him how to start a fire. He poured out too much lighter fluid and they both had to jump back from the flames.

“Oh my. Maybe you’d better let me do that from now on,” said June, patting his arm.

Fog took one look at him and wouldn’t let him anywhere near the axe they used to split wood.

He tried to help Shrub with the laundry and got a pillowcase caught in the handwringer. When he tried to get it out he tore it in half and pinched his finger.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sticking his finger in his mouth, “I’m so clumsy. And useless.”

Shrub freed the other half of the pillowcase and put it aside.

“It’s okay. My first week here, Ash and June made a huge pot of soup for all of us to eat. They used this special combination of broths and lots of vegetables, and even some pasta we had back then. And when it was all done and ready to serve…I knocked it over. The whole thing. All over the ground.”

“ _Oh no_ ,” said Phil, covering his mouth with his hands and staring at Shrub in horror.

“Fog said ‘your presence significantly decreases the chances of the entire group’s survival.’ Ash said ‘your presence significantly increases the chance of me committing murder.’ Even June was mad. They tried to hide it, but I could tell. I cried all night in my cabin.”

“That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

They shrugged.

“It was a long time ago. I’m useful now. I clean.”

Shrub picked up the next item of laundry and started scrubbing it against the washboard.

“It feels good to be helpful,” they continued. “Like there’s a reason for me to be here with everyone.”

Phil sighed.

“I’d love to be helpful too.”

“You will be. Besides, you’re kind. That’s helpful.”

Shrub looked up at him and smiled. He smiled back.

“You know….I once fell off a stage in front of thousands of people. And I once broke two mirrors in a week. I’ve fallen down stairs, put forks in microwaves, dropped full bowls of cereal and broke a sofa…I could go on. I’m basically a walking disaster.”

“Wow,” said Shrub, sounding genuinely impressed.

“Also, I once steered an ocean liner into an iceberg.”

“ _Really?_ ”

“No. That one was a lie.”

*

The place where he soon found himself to be most useful was in the kitchen, helping June and Ash prepare food. Everyone was excited when he stumbled upon a large bag of dry rice in the back of a neglected cupboard.

“This is so exciting,” said June, marveling over the rice like it was a treasure chest of gold. “I had no idea we still had this.”

“All Hail the King of Rice” said Ash, slapping him on the shoulder.


	5. Chapter 5

There was a noise from behind the cabins. Everyone froze, eyes locked on the trees. Dan felt his pulse quicken.

Something was moving back there. He couldn’t see it, but they could all hear it. Whatever it was, it was making no attempt to be stealthy. Leaves rustled, twigs snapped. Even the sound of snuffling, heavy breathing was audible.

It sounded like it was coming closer. Then suddenly the noise stopped. Dan held his breath.

There was a loud flurry of crunching foliage, like something was moving very swiftly. Shrub screamed. June and Fog jumped back. Dan closed his eyes and started counting under his breath. He dug his nails into his palms.

The sound of the thing persisted but got fainter.

“It’s not coming this way,” said Ash. “It’s running away.”

The other ghosts relaxed, the tension in their bodies easing away like they’d been cut from taught strings. Dan was not relaxed.

“What the hell was that?”

“An eek,” said Fog, nonchalant now that the threat was gone.

Eek? Like a scream?

“And what the fuck is an eek?”

“It’s an animal,” Shrub whispered, still looking out at the trees. “They live in the woods.”

Dan remembered the noises he’d heard when he’d first arrived. He’d chalked them up to just being squirrels or something (not that he’d seen a single squirrel around camp). Or just his fear-soaked brain getting the best of him.

“Don’t worry about it too much, Dan,” said Ash, already lounging on the ground, leaning back against one of the benches and cracking open a book. “Not a single one has ever actually come out in the open.”

Fog had walked off to the bathroom. June went into their cabin, humming a happy tune. Even Shrub seemed to have calmed down, and went to fetch their knitting. Dan figured if they were all acting so serene, then it must be okay. They knew more than he did about whether they were in danger or not. But he was still on edge.

He wanted to go tell Phil about what had just happened. But was it really necessary to scare him? Because it would scare him. Dan knew that. Not least of all because it was challenging to explain anything properly ten letters at a time.

June came back out of their cabin, holding a big bundle of laundry. They sat down on a bench with the mass of fabric on their lap and started folding. Dan got up and walked over, sitting on the one next to it.

“Let me help you with that,” he said.

June smiled and passed some of it over.

“Thank you, dear.”

He kept his hands busy, but every so often he looked up and out into the trees.

*

Dan and the ghosts were sat around the fire, eating a dinner of watery tomato soup and limp broccoli.

There was some lazy conversation happening—something about the broccoli being repulsive— _No it isn’t. You’re just picky—Actually everything we eat here is repulsive—I didn’t tenderly thaw this broccoli so you could insult it. Go forage for berries if this isn’t good enough._ Just bants. Dan realized as he was sitting there, occasionally contributing to the conversation, that he finally felt at ease around the ghosts. Once he noticed it he started to feel awkward again. He didn’t speak for the next five minutes and just thought about how embarrassing most of things he’d already said probably were. So much for progress

He wished Phil was there. He always felt more confident when they were together. Phil didn’t have to say or do anything in particular, just his presence was enough. Dan’s words flowed more easily and he was less self-conscious. He had done plenty of things on his own without Phil, of course, like for Young Minds and Stop, Speak, Support. And he’d been confident and articulate when they did all of those interviews to promote their first book. But that was different. Those were professional engagements. Not personal, social ones. Not ones were he didn’t have a plan, or a script, or a defined purpose.

Phil might have been feeling the same way. Maybe. In situations were other people were feeling awkward or anxious, Phil had a way of easing tension and melting ice—even when he himself was stressed. Dan didn’t know how much Phil had warmed to the ghosts. They didn’t ever really talk about them. All he knew was that there were the same ones on both sides.

Dan realized he’d been checked out of the conversation and tuned back in.

“…I’m just saying, there must be a way to make this more palatable,” said Fog. “Perhaps you two could learn more about cooking.”

“Yeah? Maybe you could learn more about cooking. See if you can get gourmet meals out of what me and June have to work with,” Ash replied.

Dan wondered if they were ever going to stop talking about the food. It was a common topic of conversation. It was always the same and never went anywhere.

He decided to try and change the subject.

“Hey…so, you know how you guys exist up North too?”

“Yes?” said June

“But you’re not exactly the same, right? You don’t do all the same things because all the same things don’t happen in both places.”

Dan felt like he wasn’t explaining what he meant properly. He’d just been thinking about how from the little Phil had told him, the ghosts seemed to have the same personalities, but if they didn’t do all the same things and live the same lives—were they really the same people? Was it just names and appearances? Coincidence?

“I just mean, are you the same people? And how does that work?”

“We’re the same people,” said Fog, “but weren’t not living the exact same lives. Our circumstances are similar but any number of random occurrences can cause an alteration in how we react to those circumstances. Your friend ending up on the other side will affect the actions of our Northern selves in different ways from how you affect us over here.”

“It’s like a choose-you-own-adventure book,” said Ash. “There’s different paths. You’re the same person regardless of which path you take. But different shit happens and you react accordingly.”

Dan nodded. He still wasn’t one hundred percent sure he understood. But he had often thought about what would have happened if he had made slightly different choices in his life. Anything from huge things like not dropping out of university, to trivial things like missing a train. He believed in coincidence and randomness. Anything could happen. Nothing was guaranteed to happen.

They were all silent for a minute, the only sounds the slurping of soup and chewing of disappointing broccoli. Ash finished their food, picked up a magazine they’d had on the bench beside them, and started flipping through the pages. Dan looked up and saw that Shrub had stopped eating and was staring at the fire with a strange look on their face. They sort of looked angry, or maybe like they had just smelled something foul. He remembered that they had been silent through dinner.

June started to say something, but Shrub interrupted.

“I don’t think it was always that way. Not when we arrived…I think there used to be different people over there.”

June and Fog both looked at Shrub intently. Ash didn’t look up from their magazine, but Dan noticed they had stopped flipping through the pages.

“I think we arrived in pairs and groups, like you and Phil did, with equal numbers on both sides…but we weren’t mirrors of each other. I think we’ve been altered. Our personalities have been distilled so we could be assimilated. There’s this…this unalterable flow here, toward symmetry and simplicity. I know I used to be someone else. I think the Shrub up North used to be someone else, too. But I can’t remember who we were or how we’ve changed. Something’s missing…but I can’t remember.”

It was the most Dan had ever heard Shrub speak at once, and probably more words than he’d heard them speak in total up to that point. Everyone was silent, then June started to laugh awkwardly. It was too loud and clearly forced.

“Shrub, darling, you think too much. You’re such a brooder!”

Another moment of painfully awkward silence. Then Shrub stood up slowly, face emotionless and perfectly composed, and walked into the woods.

Ash sighed, tossed her magazine aside, and got up. They looked directly at June.

“Sometimes you should just keep your fucking mouth shut,” they said, then headed off after Shrub.

Dan was anxious about the things Shrub had said. Were Phil and him going to change? Would they become less and less themselves the longer they were there? He didn’t want to be simplified. He didn’t want Phil and him to become the same person. Despite all the jokes they made about their sameness, and despite how much he valued the things they had in common, he loved their differences. He didn’t want to lose himself or Phil. He didn’t want to forget.

*

Shrub and Ash hadn’t returned by the time Dan and the others went to bed. There was a palpable feeling of tension in the air, but he was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to care much.

When he got up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water, he saw June and Shrub huddled together on one of the benches, whispering. June had their arm around Shrub’s shoulders, and Shrub was gesticulating and speaking rapidly.

It occurred to Dan that he didn’t really know much about the ghosts at all. Who they were below the surface, and who they were to each other, was a mystery to him. He realized that he hadn’t been fully thinking of them as people who were just as complex as him. Back in his bed, he wondered if he really wanted to know.


	6. Chapter 6

June, Shrub, and Ash were trying to teach Phil how to play a card game of their own invention. They’d been playing for at least half an hour, and he still had very little idea what was going on.

It didn’t help that they used their own names for the suites. They called hearts Junes, spades Fogs, diamonds Ashes, and clubs Shrubs (that was the only one he found easy to remember). Ash would say something like, “Phil, do you have any Fogs over 7?” and it would take him half a minute to figure out they meant spades with a value of 8 and up.

They were all being quite patient with him though. He couldn’t help thinking that if Fog had been there, things would have been a bit less calm. They were out gathering wood. Every five minutes or so they returned, unloaded an armful, and then headed back out.

“You know Phil, if you keep playing with us, we’ll have to add new cards to the deck. We can call them Phils,” said June, smiling warmly at him.

“Just call the spades Phils instead of Fogs,” said Ash.

“That wouldn’t be very nice,” June replied with a pout.

“Fog never wants to play,” said Shrub.

Ash snapped their fingers and pointed at Shrub.

“Exactly.”

Watching the ghosts tease each other made Phil smile. He genuinely liked them as people. It had taken time to warm up to them, but every day he felt less like he was living among strangers.

Of course, he would never feel even close to as comfortable with them as he did with Dan, no matter how much time they spent together. Dan put him at a level of ease no one else could match.

Just like that, he was missing Dan again. He always missed Dan, but it was usually just a dull ache and a little nagging voice in the back of his mind. Then sometimes it hit him intensely—a feeling of all the air being vacuum-sucked out of his chest.

He hadn’t spent this much time apart from Dan since meeting him. And even when they were separated by distance, they could still find ways to hear each other’s voices and see one another’s faces. Brief back-and-forth exchanges on stones and leaves would never, ever be enough.

Phil’s reverie was broken by the sound of something between a shout and a grunt coming from behind them. Ash and June both stood up.

A few seconds later Fog came out of the woods, walking swiftly and holding their left arm close to their chest. He could see blood leaking out from underneath their right hand where it was gripping their forearm.

“Fucking eek,” said Fog.

They strode quickly past the fire pit and into the bathroom, letting the door slam. June followed.

“What happened?” asked Phil. “What’s an eek?”

“It’s an animal,” said Ash. “They live in the woods.”

It occurred to Phil that he had never seen an animal at or around the camp. No squirrels, no birds, no badgers. Not even bugs.

He could empathize with being bit by an animal though.

“Is Fog gonna be ok?”

“Yeah, they’ll be fine. June will patch them up,” said Ash, sitting back down. “We’ve all been bit before. Fog more than once since they’re always gallivanting in the woods.”

Phil had goosebumps. His eyes kept darting back to the trees. Was the eek going to come barreling out and attack them at any moment?

“They stay in the woods,” said Shrub. “They like the dark. Where you can’t see their faces.”

Shrub must have guessed what he was thinking from the way he was wringing his hands and biting his lip. Their words were far from comforting. It didn’t sound like they were describing animals.

“Their…their faces?”

“They just mean that we don’t really know what they look like. They always attack in the dark and move too quickly. And it’s a one-and-done deal. They bite you and then fuck off.”

He thought about the nightmare he’d had. The dark and indistinct _something_ he’d seen stalking his doppelganger through the trees. It was just a dream. But what if it was something more? A premonition?

If Dan was with him he would have rolled his eyes and told him it was just a coincidence. In his life before coming to the outpost, Phil would probably have accepted that explanation. Things were different now.

Ash and Shrub didn’t seem to be worried. He was still on edge but he tried to work through it. If they weren’t concerned, and the eeks only lived in the woods, then everything was probably fine.

Eventually Fog and June came out of the bathroom. Fog’s left forearm was wrapped in a layer of gauze with a cloth bandage over that. June was all smiles.

“That was exciting, huh? Little bit of a thrill to spice up the evening?”

“No,” said Fog.

“Well, everything’s all right now. Phil, dear, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You look a bit rattled.”

“Yeah, I guess I am. It’s just…I didn’t know there was anything else living here.”

They walked over and patted him on the shoulder.

“It’s nothing to worry about, I promise. As long as you don’t go wandering into the woods you’ll be just fine.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Phil forced a smile because June was trying to comfort him. He appreciated it even if it wasn’t working.

*

The next afternoon, Phil was about to head down to the pond when Ash walked out of the kitchen.

“Hey, Phil,” they said, jogging up to him.

“Hey.”

“Your friend—Dan, right?—how long have you known him?”

The question caught him by surprise. The ghosts almost never asked him about Dan. They didn’t seem to care much. Phil didn’t bring him up either, because he was afraid if he started talking about him he’d get emotional.

“Uh, almost nine years. Why?”

“And how well do you know him?”

“Really well, I’d say. Like, really well. Better than I know anybody.”

Possibly better than he knew himself.

“And he knows you really well, too?”

Phil laughed lightly.

“Yeah, that’s kind of a point of pride for him.”

Ash nodded and bit their lip.

“Okay. Good talk. Gotta run.”

They had already disappeared into their cabin before Phil could ask why they were suddenly interested in his relationship with Dan. He stared at the closed cabin door, wondering if he should go knock and request an explanation.

He might not get one even if he asked. Then he’d just be wasting precious time he could be spending writing to Dan. He turned his back on the camp and headed to the pond.

*

As he was trying to fall asleep the night before, Phil had debated whether or not he should tell Dan about the eek biting Fog. He couldn’t think of a reason why he shouldn’t. Except….he kept thinking about his dream. Watching himself. Watching the shadow lurking after him. Dan’s hands where his own should have been.

_And how well do you know him?_

Phil shivered, though it wasn’t cold.

A strange feeling of paranoia was starting to creep up on him, like ink spilled and spreading slowly, soaking into his brain. He couldn’t identify the cause. He trusted Dan. He trusted the ghosts too, for the most part. Something just felt _off_. Something had shifted by an almost imperceptible degree.

He pushed it out of his mind and reached for a stone.

-Animal bit F-

He waited a minute or so. He and Dan had worked out a system where they’d slip down to their respective ponds about half an hour after lunch, because both sides seemed to be on a similar meal schedule. They’d assist with the cleanup and dish washing, then take their leave.

Dan’s reply bubbled up to the surface.

_-what?-_

-Fog bit-

_-eek?-_

So Dan already knew about them, and they were on his side too. Phil didn’t like that. He thought about the blood barely visible under Fog’s hand, just a wet red shadow. So easily missed. So easily ignored.

-Yeah-

_-told bout it-_

_-no bites tho-_

-Good-

He wanted to tell Dan to stay out of the woods. As if Dan wouldn’t already know it was a bad idea to wander off away from the camp. He knew about the eeks. He wasn’t a coward but he wasn’t rash either. He wasn’t the kind of person who’d hear about a thing like that and take his chances anyway. In fact, Dan didn’t need the threat of mysterious animals that attacked people to make him stay clear of a sea of trees.

He wouldn’t be reckless like that. Phil knew Dan.


	7. Chapter 7

Dan had an idea.

It came to him in a dream. Sort of. It was a very good dream about Phil. He’d woken up in a wonderful mood. It wasn’t the good part of the dream that gave him the idea, though--it was its surreal beginning.

He was standing on a frozen lake, set in the valley of a white wasteland. His breath fogged before his face, but he didn’t feel the cold. He looked down and his feet were bare. They were numb, making him feel as though he was floating above the slick surface instead of standing on it.

Dan saw something beneath the ice. He knelt down to get a closer look. The ice was thick, but he could see right through it. From underneath, Phil was looking up at him, the edges of his face softened and glowing like a moon in a deep blue sky.

At first he feared that Phil was trapped and unable to breathe. Then he saw that Phil was smiling. He opened his mouth and Dan could hear his words tumbling around inside his head, like his skull would be empty without them.

_Kiss me._

Following dream logic, Dan pressed his lips to the ice. On the other side, Phil did the same. They breathed in and out, and their breath began to melt the barrier between them. Dan could feel the ice giving way to water, to Phil. The moment their lips touched, everything tilted and blurred, and he tumbled into another dream.

There was something about a YouTube video he’d accidentally deleted—Phil yelling at him because they’d spent hours editing it—and a dog that turned into a pear, and then a much more satisfying reunion with Phil, bodies intertwined on a cabin floor.

Dan threw on his dress and left his cabin. No one else was outside. Everything was quiet and gray in the weak morning light. He popped into the kitchen to snag a box of cereal (he hated eating it dry but there wasn’t much of an alternative), and headed down to the pond.

No leaf, so Phil wasn’t up yet. He dropped his stone in and ate while he waited.

The gray gave way to blue as the sun fully rose. He’d almost polished off the box of cereal when Phil’s reply finally surfaced.

- _Morning_ -

Dan got right to business.

-kiss in-

- _What?_ -

-water like-

-hands-

No reply. He waited, chewing his lip. Did Phil get it?

- _Ok_ -

- _on 3_ -

Dan took a deep breath, placed his hands flat on the ground at the edge of the pond, and plunged his head into the water.

He couldn’t open his eyes. It was too dark in the pond to see anyway—a black void of oddly warm water. He slowly stuck his head in deeper.

He felt his nose brush against something—maybe Phil’s cheek? He moved his face to the side a bit and they bumped noses. From there he knew where Phil’s mouth would be. Their lips met and he parted his instinctively…

…and immediately swallowed a mouthful of water.

Dan whipped his head up and out of the pond, gasping and coughing. Water ran in rivulets down his face and dripped off his chin. He sat back and pushed his wet curls off his forehead.

A leaf floated to the surface of the pond.

- _Up my nose_ -

He wiped his hands on his dress and grabbed a rock.

-bad idea-

- _Funny_ -

As Dan left the pond, he mused about what other body parts they might be able to put in the water.

*

Dan was going to make a video.

Not a video, technically. More like a speech or a performance. He’d told June a few weeks ago about being a YouTuber, and they’d been pestering him to make something ever since.

“I don’t remember if I ever knew what a ‘your tube’ is, but I’m sure yours will be wonderful.”

“YouTube. I can’t make a video here. We’ve got no camera.”

Or lights, microphone, editing software, Phil to check his editing for no reason other than it made Dan feel better…

“We’ll be the camera! You can do the video, and we’ll record it in our memories!”

Dan almost said _no, that’s a terrible idea_ , but June was giddy like a child on Christmas Eve, and he was Santa Claus.

So there he was, standing awkwardly in front of the ghosts, all sat next to each other on pillows on the ground. He felt like a camp counselor. Four faces stared up at him, expressions ranging from critically bored to _way too excited_ for what was about to occur.

The only person who ever heard Dan filming his videos was Phil. The only observer of his monologues was the cold eye of a camera lens.

Dan had spoken and performed in front of much larger crowds, with much higher stakes, but strangely this made him more nervous. A sea of faces melding together might have been preferable to the intimacy of speaking to four people in an unnervingly quiet clearing. He took a deep breath and dove in.

The concept wasn’t as tight as he would have liked it to be. He’d patched together his ideas with loose threads. The main theme was choices. Why we make the choices we do, how those choices affect us, how they create the subsequent choices we will be given. Going back. Trying to alter the outcomes. Regrets. Acceptance.

Dan was aware about a minute in that he was rambling. He’d gone off script several times and was having trouble pulling himself back to the words he’d planned. He was out of practice, and he didn’t have the luxury of eventual editing to smooth out his message and unify his thoughts.

Editing. Choices. Do-overs. What if, what if, what if…

“Goodbye,” he said, wrapping everything up.

Why the fuck did he say that?

There was a painfully long moment in which no one reacted, then June stood up and started clapping enthusiastically.

“Well done, Dan! That was amazing!”

The rest of the ghosts remained seated. Ash clapped politely.

Fog crossed their arms and said, “I don’t get it.”

“I don’t like the way it made me feel,” Shrub mumbled, drawing their knees up to their chest.

Dan could perfectly visualize their words in text, as comments underneath a video. Except he was standing before the commenters and making eye contact with them, and he didn’t care for that at all.

He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away.

“So, yeah. That’s it. That’s what I do. That’s my career.”

*

Dan sulked in his cabin. There was always a period of post-upload angst for him, in which he watched comments roll in and reactions bloom, and was reminded for the umpteenth time that once he put something out into the world, he had no control over how it was viewed.

This time was different due to the audience being so much smaller and having far less information about him and therefore fewer expectations. He still internalized their reactions. June had clearly been faking it just to make him feel better. Did Fog not get it because it didn’t make sense, or did it just go over their head? Ash couldn’t have given less of shit. And Shrub…

Stewing in his petulance was all well and good, but bothering Phil would perhaps be better. Might take his mind off it. He dragged himself off the bed and out of his cabin.

*

-Phil-

-Phiiiil-

He didn’t really give a shit if he was wasting stones.

Five minutes.

-Phil-

- _You ok?_ -

-need to see u-

-need u here-

-come here-

Sometimes it was nice to just give in and be a little shit. Sometimes that was easier than focusing on how much he really missed Phil. Scrawling on stones hurt less than sitting with the feelings, letting them wash over him and fill him up until he drowned.

- _Any world_ -

-what?-

- _Find me_ -

Dan almost wrote “what?” on another stone, but then he understood. Of all things, Phil was referencing the _Fortnite_ video they’d made ages ago. He couldn’t help but laugh. What a fucking dork.

He reached for another stone and saw that he had emptied one of the three crates.

-I will-


	8. Chapter 8

Phil stepped out of his cabin and almost ran face-first into June, who was standing right outside.

“Hi, Phil!” they said, voice slightly muffled behind the mountain of linens they were carrying.

“Hi, June. Um, do you want some help with that?”

“Actually, these are for you, dear,” they said, thrusting the pile forward so suddenly he barely had a chance to get his arms out.

He peered over the pink and blue quilt on top at June’s now revealed, smiling face.

“Thank you… but why?”

Their smiled dropped for a split second.

“To keep you warm! The Cold Times are coming. Tomorrow. I’m sorry to tell you on such short notice but it slipped my mind that you wouldn’t know yet.”

“The Cold Times?”

“Yes! But don’t worry. We’ve all been through them many times, and everything will be fine.”

Phil could practically taste the syrupy-sweet false cheerfulness dripping from June’s voice.

“But…what _are_ the Cold Times?”

June’s smile fell again, but this time it didn’t bounce back.

“It’s like winter. But different. It’s….well, I’m not sure how to describe it, darling. You’ll know when it comes.”

That was the most ominous and unreassuring thing Phil had ever heard.

“So, on top you’ve got some quilts,” June continued, “and a few blankets—they’re a bit ratty, I know—and then a change of clothes to keep you cozy!”

They reached forward and pulled a layer out from the bottom of the pile, nearly sending the whole thing toppling to the ground.

June held up two garments. The first was a knit jumper—huge, red, and deliciously comfy looking. The next was a matching pair of red pants—sort of like a leg jumper, Phil thought.

“Shrub made them just for you! Well, they made these for all of us before. I don’t know how me and Ash managed before they got here.”

Phil didn’t know what to say. June folded the clothes up and put them back on top of the pile. He’d seen Shrub knitting plenty, but never working on these. They must have done it in their cabin.

“I’ll see you later,” said June, patting his hand and strolling off.

*

Phil didn’t see Shrub till lunch, when they emerged from their cabin. He could’ve just gone and knocked on their door, but he was feeling strangely shy.

When they walked out he jumped up from his bench and they froze, staring at him wide-eyed.

“Shrub, thank you for the jumper! And the, um, the legs.”

Why was he being so weird? The _legs_?

“That’s okay,” Shrub said, somberly. “You’ll need them. The Cold Times are coming.”

They started to walk away toward the bathroom.

“Wait! Can you tell me more about the Cold Times? June was kind of…vague.”

Shrub stopped and looked over their shoulder at Phil.

“It’s like someone’s thrown a bucket of ice water over your head. But the water just keeps coming and it changes you.”

What was he supposed to say to that? What do you mean? Thanks for nothing? No—not nothing. He was grateful for the clothes even if he was tired of all the cryptic evasions.

He’d bother Ash or Fog about it later. Maybe one of them would give him a straight answer.

*

Ash and Fog were just as unhelpful.

“It will get very cold here,” said Fog. “Down South it will be hot. As long as you don’t act foolishly everything will be fine.”

“Everyone makes such a big deal out of it, but it’s whatever. Shit happens. We get over it. Time goes by and we do it all over again,” said Ash.

“Great. Thanks.”

*

Phil strolled back up to camp. After lunch he had gone down to the pond to swap stones with Dan, who confirmed that the Hot Times were coming by him, and that his ghosts were equally as unforthcoming about what that entailed.

Ash poked their head out of their cabin as Phil walked by.

"Hey, Phil, can you come in here? I need to talk to you."

He felt a bit apprehensive, not having any idea what Ash wanted to talk about. But he couldn't think of a good excuse not to.

"Sure."

He hoped they would tell him why everyone was being so cagey.

Once inside, Ash sat on the bed and patted the space next to them to show Phil he should sit there. They had a beat-up notebook on their lap.

Phil sat down. He didn't know what to do with his hands, so he just clasped them awkwardly in his lap.

"I wanted to show you something," said Ash, running their fingers over the creased red cover of the notebook. "This is my diary."

"You have a diary?"

Phil had never seen Ash writing in anything. Maybe they only wrote in it when they were alone in their cabin.

"I don't use it anymore, but when I got here I used to write in it every day," they said, flipping through the pages.

They turned to one near the beginning and read aloud, "J’—that's June—‘showed me how to use the pond today. C says there's a J on their side too. Same name or same person?"

"Who's C?"

"That's who I came over with. They ended up down South."

"Like me and Dan."

"Right."

Ash continued to flip through the pages. Phil saw that near the beginning of the book, they were filled with blocks of tiny, cramped letters. As the pages went on, there were fewer words written on each one, until some only had a sentence or a couple words each, and halfway through, the pages became blank.

"I used to write about C every day. We sent messages to each other constantly. But page by page I mention them less and less. Some pages I don't write about them at all. Then the Cold Times came."

Phil swallowed nervously and chewed at the inside of his lip.

"In my last entry I write that June told me the Cold Times were beginning the next day. Then I never wrote in here again."

"Why did you stop?"

Ash kept turning pages, even though they were blank.

"I don't know. I don't remember writing any of this. I don't know who C is, and I don't remember using the pond to contact them. I don't remember any of it."

A feeling of dread was building in Phil’s body, sinking heavy in his stomach and making his muscles tense. He clenched his hands tightly together.

"When I look at this book, when I read these pages...I don't miss C. I don't know them. I don't feel anything."

Ash’s voice was calm, their expression open and relaxed. If they were lying about feeling nothing, they were hiding it very well.

Phil took off his glasses and leaned forward, covering his face with his hands.

"I didn't ask you to come in here just to make you sad," said Ash. "I wanted to show you something."

Phil could hear pages turning.

"Read this."

He sat up, wiped his watering eyes with the back of his hand, and put his glasses back on. Ash was pointing to a line on a page near the beginning of the book.

_Today J told me there's a door in the woods behind the cabins that connects North and South. They can't take me there now though because it's "too dangerous."_

His eyes widened as he read and his heart sped up. He looked at Ash, who was looking right back at him.

"Is that true? There's a way to get to Dan?"

"I wish I could tell you more, but I don't know. When I first reread this diary, I asked June about it, but they said they had no idea about any door and didn't remember telling me. But if I wrote about the conversation, I’m sure it happened. I just don't know if the door is real."

Phil stood up, and Ash followed suit.

"You can't go running off right now to try to find a door that may or may not exist. You'll get lost and freeze to death. Or get attacked by an eek.”

"Then why did you tell me about it?" said Phil, trying to keep his voice level and calm.

Why had no one told him about this sooner? Ash could have shown him the diary weeks ago.

"I thought you could use a little hope. And that maybe, if I told you what happened to me—to all of us—you might be able to keep it from happening to you and Dan."

*

After he left Ash's cabin, Phil went to the pond immediately. He dropped a stone (Need tell u) into the pond. He sat there for half an hour, waiting for Dan to reply.

He could have just gotten up and left for a bit. Dan would respond eventually. But he wanted to be there as soon as he did.

It took a lot of messages for Phil to explain to Dan about the door, and then to convince him it was a bad idea to go off looking for it without a plan. One of the three crates of stones was empty, and he had started in on the second. Fog would not have approved.

*

Apparently, the advent of the Cold Times called for a celebration.

It was several hours after dinner and the sun had set. The cool evening air was challenged by the heat of the fire that Fog, Shrub, and Phil were sat around. June and Ash disappeared for a few minutes and returned with five unopened bottles of red wine. Phil had no idea where they’d been conjured from.

Everybody got their own bottle. A corkscrew was passed around and they all clinked them clumsily together.

Phil only drank about two glass’s worth from his bottle, but the ghosts all got fantastically drunk. He sat on his bench, feeling warm and wavy, as they cavorted about.

Ash kissed everyone on the cheek at least twice.

After they kissed Phil the second time, they pulled back, grabbed his shoulders, and said solemnly, “You have very beautiful eyes.”

They were already walking away—head thrown back, bottle held up with two hands—before he could say thank you.

June couldn’t stop laughing. Every little thing had them doubling over or falling to the ground, spilling tears and wine. Phil started hovering around them, concerned that they would fall into the fire at any moment.

They patted him on the arm and hiccupped in his face.

“Philip! You’re too much. You’re too tall. Go home to the trees,” they said, before falling into hysterics again.

At some point, Fog bent down so Shrub could sit on their shoulders, then jumped up on one of the benches and danced a little soft-shoe. Phil and the other ghosts clapped and whistled.

When the dance was done, Fog bowed deeply, sending Shrub sliding sideways off their shoulders to the ground. They sprang back up like nothing had happened and the ghosts cheered.

Fog sauntered over to Phil and pointed at the wine bottle nestled between his feet.

“Are you going to finish that?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so.”

Fog took the bottle and took a long swig. They wiped their mouth and held the bottle back out to Phil.

“I think I’m good for now.”

They shrugged and tipped it to their lips again.

*

The fire was low and the ghosts had all passed out around it. The bottles were empty. Phil lit a lantern and made his way slowly down to the pond.

He wasn’t drunk. Not really. He was pretty sure he’d only had two or three glasses. He was warm and happy and weightless. He was thinking about Dan and hoping he was thinking about him too.

He sat down by the water’s edge and thought about what to write. I love you? Was that ten letters? He counted on his fingers. Eight.

Before he had a chance to even grab a stone, a leaf rose to the surface and floated toward him. He plucked it out of the water and held it close to the lantern so he could read it.

- _phil u there_ -

The message was written quite sloppily, even for Dan. Phil could’ve just replied yes, but what fun was that? That wasn’t how he felt.

-I love you-

Dan’s reply came quickly.

- _touch_ -

Phil assumed he was supposed to but his hand in the water, so he did. Dan’s wasn’t there to meet him.

Three more leaves surfaced in quick succession.

- _yourself_ -

- _me too_ -

- _if want to_ -

He felt Dan’s hand grasp his.

-yes OK-

The moon glowed softly overhead, and Phil was glad that the ghosts were passed out from their drinking. He lay on his back, looking up at the stars and thinking about Dan, with one hand on himself and the other in the pond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big big thanks to everyone who's been reading, leaving kudos, or commenting. i'm having a lot of fun writing this and i appreciate the support :)


	9. Chapter 9

Dan woke up feeling like he’d just stepped out of a hot tub. He was drenched in sweat and his skin was burning hot. He sat up slowly, back sore from sleeping on the ground, and looked around.

He was still out by the pond. Someone had stuck a beach umbrella in the dirt beside him while he was asleep, and that was probably the only reason he hadn’t got sunstroke for the second time in his life.

The sun was unbearably large and bright, like someone had thrown a lasso around it and dragged it closer. It blocked out all the blue in the sky, leaving only blinding white around a hazy ball of yellow.

Dan stood up and pulled his dress off over his head, noting how wet it was to the touch. He needed a shower five hours ago, and not just because of the sweat. His head hurt a bit—a manageable dull throb. His tongue felt thick in his dry mouth. He didn’t know if he was hungover or just dehydrated from the heat. Probably both.

He headed up to the camp, grateful for the shade provided by the trees along the path. He noted that the grass was looking a bit yellow and crispy.

No one was sitting around outside. Dan stood for a moment, swaying in the heat, then noticed something folded up on one of the benches. It looked like several pillowcases, and a note was sitting on top. It read:

_New duds. The management requests you don’t walk around fully naked. Also if you don’t put one of these on you’ll burn to death._

The note wasn’t signed but Dan could guess Ash had written it.

He unfolded the first piece of fabric and saw that it was basically the summer chic version of his old sack dress. This one appeared to be sewn out of an old bedsheet (yellow, with tiny purple crocuses) and had the addition of sleeves. Dan was confused by that bit at first, but quickly realized it was probably another measure to keep the sun off his skin. Beneath it were too more dresses in the same style (one a yellowing white, the other pink and cream stripes).

Dan was so, so glad that things were supposed to be getting cold instead of hot up North. Phil would already be dead otherwise.

Shit. Phil. He’d completely forgotten to check the pond or send a message. He desperately wanted to get clean as soon as possible, but he also wanted to enjoy his shower without anything nagging at his mind. He left the dresses behind and headed back to the pond.

There was no leaf on the water. Dan grabbed a stone and immediately dropped it, hissing at the burn of its surface heat. He leaned over the stone on the ground and wrote the usual greeting.

Instead of picking up the hot stone, he just sort of slapped it into the water. A strange thing happened then. He heard a soft _plop_ , like it had hit something—the bottom of a pond, for instance. But this pond was bottomless.

Dan leaned over the water, just watching. Nothing happened. No leaves. Phil must not have been up or around.

He thought about the sound. He reached for another stone, wrapping his sleeve around his hand before picking it up. He’d move the umbrella over to shade the crates later.

He didn’t write anything on the stone, just dropped it in.

Another _plop_.

Dan stuck his arms in the water up to his elbows. He touched bottom. Where nothing had been before, his fingers were now scraping mud. He felt around and made contact with both stones.

If his brain wasn’t so melted from the heat he would’ve started panicking at that point. Instead he got up and tried something new—stepping into the pond.

He could feel the mud between his toes. He pressed his feet down into it, like he could break through to the other side, but beyond the mud there was just more mud.

He stepped out and crouched down again. Hands back in the water. He dug at the bottom of the pond—slowly at first, then frantically.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Dan was so startled he nearly fell face-first into the water. Behind him, Fog stood glowering with their arms crossed.

He pulled his dirty hands out of the water and pushed his sweat-dripping hair off his forehead. The mud held it back like hair gel. He was already filthy anyway.

“The pond’s broken.”

“It’s not broken, you idiot. It’s just closed for the season.”

“What? What are you talking about?” he said, the pitch of his voice squeaking higher.

“Hot Times. No Pond. Just get up and clean yourself off, for fuck’s sake.”

Dan had started shaking. He didn’t know if it was from the anxiety or the anger, but he was definitely feeling both. He stood up and took a step toward Fog.

“Why the fuck didn’t any of you tell me about this? How the fuck do I fix it? What the fuck is going on?”

Fog rolled their eyes and rubbed their temples.

“I don’t have time to deal with your whining.”

They walked off, leaving Dan standing there with his mouth hanging open.

*

Something was wrong. Everything was wrong.

It wasn’t just the heat or the pond. The ghosts had lost it.

Fog and June stood around having shouting matches. Well, Fog shouted. June just laughed and egged them on. Fog had gone from gruff to furious about everything. June was no longer sweet and a little chatty. They talked so quickly their sentences bled into one another halfway through and became nearly nonsensical. The angrier Fog got, the more gleeful June became.

Ash didn’t give a shit about any of it. They sat in their beach chair, under the shade of another umbrella, and lazily flipped pages. A bag of frozen carrots thawed beside them, and every so often they reached in, fished one out, and tossed it into their mouth.

Shrub didn’t come out of their cabin. Not for breakfast or lunch. Though there really wasn’t a breakfast or a lunch. It was apparently every ghost (and Dan) for themself now.

Dan didn’t want to get in the middle of any of it. Through the morning and afternoon he took three showers, rustled up his own food, and spent the rest of his time in his cabin, where it was still hot as hell but at least out of the sun.

He tried to block out Fog’s shouting and June’s loud rambling and focus. Phil. He needed to talk to Phil. Apparently he couldn’t. The ghosts had failed to inform him of the most crucial piece of information he needed about the Hot Times.

What was Phil thinking? Presumably his pond had closed off too, but what if it hadn’t? What if he thought Dan was just ignoring him, or was hurt or dying or dead or…

A ridiculous thought wormed its way into his brain. Phil was going to be so mad at him. This whole thing was Dan’s fault, somehow.

He peeled himself off the floor and went to take another shower, hoping the water would wash out the negative thoughts starting to build up in his mind like so much mud.

*

Days passed. Everything was still fucked.

Fog and June were insufferable. Ash was checked out. Shrub never left their cabin, at least not while Dan was awake. Every so often, he saw Ash carrying in food and water.

On the third day of the Hot Times, he asked them about it.

“Ash, what’s up with Shrub? Are they, like…okay?”

“They died,” Ash deadpanned.

“Wha—”

“I’m kidding. They’re just depressed. If you’ll excuse me…”

They stepped around him and slipped into Shrub’s cabin, a loaf of bread under their arm and a jug of water in hand.

*

On the sixth day Ash seemed to have decided to stop bothering to bring Shrub anything. Dan watched them all day, waiting. By evening he gave up and went to do it himself.

It was too hot to cook anything, but everyone kept leaving vegetables out on the counter to thaw to an arguably edible state. He grabbed some broccoli (Shrub’s favorite) and filled a jug with water.

In their cabin, Shrub was lying on the floor. Despite the broiling temperature, they were cocooned in a blanket. They didn’t move or react when Dan walked in.

He stood quietly for a moment, then set down the water jug and the bag of broccoli and laid down on the floor so he was facing Shrub.

They just stared at one another, breathing slowly.

After a few minutes, Shrub opened their mouth and spoke, voice dry and croaky.

“Every time this happens…I know it won’t last forever. But every time it feels like it will.”

Dan breathed in and out, chest heavy.

“Yeah. I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~thanks for reading~


	10. Chapter 10

Phil kept to a routine. In the morning he got up, threw a tattered parka on over his knitwear, slipped his feet into a pair of cracked rubber boots, and made his way down the snowy path to the pond. Every day it was the same—still frozen over with ice that no amount of force or heat could penetrate—but he went anyway.

He made food at least twice a day. Usually soup or rice. He always made enough for everyone, though sometimes he was the only one who ate. And he always brought a portion to Shrub’s cabin along with water. Sometimes they ate, sometimes they didn’t.

He cleaned. The bathroom, the kitchen. When snow fell, he shoveled. When the fire began to die, he carried logs over from the woodpile Fog had stocked up shortly before the Cold Times arrived. He needed something to do, something physical to occupy him. No one else bothered with any chores.

Every few days he boiled pots of water to bathe. The water from the shower was much too cold, and there was no way to regulate its temperature.

When he ran out of things to do he retreated to his cabin. He bundled up in blankets and took long naps. He tried to tune out the loud voices of June and Fog, arguing around the fire. Sometimes, everyone would shut themselves up in their cabins, and then the world was still and quiet.

He repeated the same motions, the same patterns, the same feelings. Was that what it felt like to be a ghost, stuck haunting the same place in the same ways forever? To not be a person, really, but rather a set of actions and behaviors and emotions in sequence, replayed over and over. No developments, no end.

Pond. Food. Clean. Shovel. Bathe. Sleep.

*

Phil worried. He worried constantly. When he had nothing left to do and he couldn’t sleep, there was no way for him to turn off his brain.

He worried about Dan. Every time he went into Shrub’s cabin he wondered if he was going through the same thing. Would anyone take care of him if he was? Phil didn’t have much faith that the ghosts down South would be more reliable than the ones on his side.

He thought about what Ash had shown him in their diary and about what they had told him. What if he started to forget Dan? He didn’t know if it was a slow process—something he’d notice as it was happening—or if he’d just wake up one day with no memory of Dan at all. Or with no memory of himself.

There was another fear that plagued him almost relentlessly. Nothing would be forgotten, neither of them would be altered, but the pond would never work again. There would be no way to talk to Dan, he would never find a way to see him, there was no door that could lead them to each other, no way to reunite, no way to get home.

He’d never see Dan or his family or friends ever again. He’d never sleep in his own bed, walk the streets of London, see a movie, play video games, eat decent food, travel…he would be forever trapped in a world where nothing good ever happened.

*

Someone shook Phil’s shoulder.

“…il, Phil, wake up!”

“Dan?” he mumbled, opening his eyes.

He could tell immediately that the blurry, bright red form that was now pacing around his cabin wasn’t Dan. He sat up and put on his glasses.

“June?” His voice was hoarse and he cleared his throat. “What’s wrong?”

They walked back over to the bed as he was swinging his legs to the floor, and practically dragged him up and outside.

The moon was full and bright, the stars glowing around it in a brown sky. Snow fell softly, building up in pristine layers.

June flopped over backwards into the snow.

“Snow angels!”

Phil shivered and rubbed his arms. He felt like he’d been awoken after a long car ride, and was stumbling sleepily on cramped legs at the end of the journey.

June sprung up from the ground and grabbed his hand, pulling him further from his cabin and deeper into the snow.

“Come on, your turn!” they said, pushing him until he was lying on the ground.

The snow was burning cold against the back of his neck, and he could feel its chill creeping through his clothes.

Next to him, June swept their arms and legs vigorously back and forth, sending a light spray of powder onto Phil.

He looked up at the sky and felt his throat tighten. Tears cut icy trails down his face.

It was wrong. All wrong. He needed to get away but he felt pinned down.

June sat up and looked over at him.

“Why are you crying did I do something I’m sorry are you mad are you sad?”

He sat up and choked out a few words, “No—no—I—fine—I’m—”

The door to Shrub’s cabin swung open and Ash stepped out, holding a lantern aloft.

“Phil, come in here.”

June stood up quickly, slipping in the snow and nearly falling back down.

“I didn’t do anything just wanted to show him not hurt him I didn’t—”

“I know, June. It’s alright. Go back to bed.”

*

Ash wrapped a blanket around him and made him sit on the floor. Shrub scooted close and laid their head on his shoulder. Ash knelt down so they were looking Phil right in the eyes.

“June can’t help it. None of us can. And if it starts happening to you, it’s not your fault.”

He was still shivering. The light from the lantern on the floor cast strange shadows on Ash’s blue face.

“It comes in waves sometimes. I feel clearer tonight. But come morning I might be apathetic again. I’ll feel like nothing matters and I’ll remember this conversation but I won’t give a shit. But you matter, okay? We all matter. And this won’t last forever.”

He nodded, head heavy on his neck. He didn’t understand. Maybe didn’t want to understand. Just wanted to go back to sleep and let this be a dream he’d forget by morning.

“Shrub, break out the emergency provisions.”

They crawled under the bed and came back out with a rusty metal tin in hand. They flipped open the lid, revealing its contents. Chocolate bars.

Phil didn’t recognize the labels, and the chocolate had a white bloom and a chalky texture. It made him feel a little more human though. He hadn’t eaten anything sweet since…he had no idea how long he’d been away from home.

“I didn’t know we had chocolate here.”

“ _We_ don’t. If you tell June and Fog about this it’s all over. June’ll say we all have to share and divide it equally, and Fog has no self-restraint.”

Phil was thinking he should maybe say something about his own levels of restraint around sweets but decided against it.

“We only found it a few days before you came,” said Shrub. “We’ve been trying to ration it for times when we really need it.”

“No time like the Cold Times,” said Ash. “We could probably do with some more wine, too, but I know in my heart that alcohol would make everything much worse right now.”

Phil was feeling a bit better. Still cold and tired, still feeling a slight pang and squeeze in his chest and memories he had to force into the back of his mind, but better.

“Where did the wine even come from?”

“Cellar out in the woods. Have to show you sometime,” Ash answered, chasing their words with a yawn.

Phil yawned in response.

“I think…I think I’ll go back to my cabin now…”

“Okay, don’t slip out there. If you see June, tell them to go inside and go the fuck to sleep.”

“Mmm,” he mumbled, as he staggered out of Shrub’s cabin.

June wasn’t outside, but Fog was. They were standing at the edge of the woods with their back to Phil and the camp. He stopped for a moment, then slipped inside his cabin without a word.


	11. Chapter 11

Phil hated him.

Dan was sure of it. Deep inside, he’d always known, hadn’t he? It was just that being around Phil had buried the knowledge. Phil was so good at pretending, accommodating, pleasing.

He was probably feeling much better without Dan there to suffocate him. Overbearing, controlling, consuming. Overtaking. Because that’s what Dan did. He chased Phil down and pulled him inside, into his muddy ugliness, and he made him into a part of him. No longer just Phil… _Dan and Phil. Phan_. Always, always.

Phil hadn’t breathed free of him for years. He had to be overjoyed. Dan was a poison purged, a necrotic limb amputated, a tumor excised.

That was good. Dan wanted Phil to be happy. He wanted Phil, but if he couldn’t have him, he at least needed him to be happy.

He felt heavy. Every part of him. Like gravity was trying to sink him through the floor. Like every organ in his body wanted to slip out of his skin and go deeper and deeper into the dirt where it belonged.

He was hot. The sweat made him feel filthy. He was. When had he last showered? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t move. He was too busy fusing with the floor. He was melting.

That was good. That was okay. He wanted to melt. He wanted his brain to leak out of his ears and leave him alone. He just wished it wasn’t happening at such an agonizingly slow pace.

He missed Phil. That was selfish. Phil couldn’t fix this. Phil didn’t deserve this. He missed him anyway.

*

Night came, and with it the air was a bit cooler. Just barely. Dan hadn’t got up, but he had managed to roll from his stomach onto his back. He couldn’t see anything. He was just floating in the darkness. Only the stiffness of the hard floor against his back reminded him he still had a physical form.

He wasn’t melting anymore. He wasn’t anything. His thoughts were white noise. Static on a television screen, about to go black. It was peaceful. It was nothing.

As he lay there, something began to intrude. Something was leaking into the nothingness, cutting through his numb brain. What was it? A smell…

Smoke?

Someone must have lit a fire. Why? It was so fucking hot, even with the sun tucked away. His irritability was intruding too—forcing him back into being a person, against his will.

He sat up. Too quickly. He felt dizzy, but it passed. The smell of smoke was getting stronger. It didn’t smell like wood burning. It was a mix of awful smells competing until they were unidentifiable.

He stood. Carefully. The last thing he needed was to faint just as he had found the will to get up.

There was an orange glow bleeding in from underneath the door.

*

Dan waited a few minutes, just standing by the door and looking down at the flickering light.

_“JUNE!”_

It was unmistakably Fog’s voice, but at a volume and intensity Dan had not yet heard. Against his better judgment, and his desire to lie back down on the floor and block out everything, he threw open the cabin door.

At first he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. There was a fire—that much he had gathered before he even stepped outside—but it wasn’t an ordinary fire. It spread past the confines of the fire pit, engulfing the benches and threatening to reach the cabins as well. Instead of wood, at the center of the bonfire was a mountain of junk. It was like a small portion of the storage room had migrated into the clearing.

There was the skeletal spokes of the beach umbrellas, their fabric panels burnt off. Melting plastic dripped off the metal frame of Ash’s beach chair. He saw hardback book covers smoldering, bags of frozen vegetables crisping along with their contents, pots and pans glowing hot, and all manner of misshapen and blackened objects that could no longer be identified.

Dan tore his eyes away from the magnificent fire and took in the two figures who were fighting at the perimeter, red and yellow faces illuminated by the orange light.

Fog was holding June under the arms, trying to drag them back. June was putting up quite a fight.

“It’s spring cleaning! Let me go!” they shouted.

Ash stepped out of the bathroom then, both hands wrapped around the handle of a big plastic bucket with water sloshing over the side. They waddled forward and threw the water over the fire.

It had little effect.

Fog and June were still scrabbling and didn’t seem to have noticed Dan. Ash spotted him and walked over.

“I think there might be a hose under the sink in the kitchen. I’m not sure but you could go look,” they said.

Ash seemed completely calm, as if there wasn’t a huge blaze in front of them, as if June wasn’t screaming while Fog dragged them away from the fire they had evidently set. Just business as usual.

“Dan? You want to make yourself useful?”

He snapped out of it and headed for the kitchen, giving the fire as wide a berth as possible. The heat it gave off was so strong he felt like the hair on his arms and legs might be singed.

In the kitchen he threw open the doors to the cabinet under the sink and sifted through sponges and soaps and other disconcertingly damp and sticky things. Coiled near the far left corner he found the hose. It was a bit kinked but looked quite long. He attached one end to the tap and turned on the water, which began spraying out the nozzle and all over the floor.

Ash poked their head in the door right then and knelt down to grab the hose.

“Nice work, Danny. Let’s fix this mess.”

*

The sun was rising. Dan sat on the ground, taking in the pile of burnt and melted objects. It was like the massive carcass of some animal slain in the middle of the campsite. Around it were the charred benches, mourners dressed in black.

After Fog had managed to get June into their cabin, and Ash and Dan had put out the fire with a combination of hose and bucket work, everyone had gone to bed except Dan. He’d been sleeping so much lately, he didn’t feel like he needed to right then.

It was still hot but he didn’t feel it as much. He’d become accustomed to the temperature. His mind felt clearer than it had since the Hot Times began. Not numb or hollow or muddy. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. If he sat perfectly still and concentrated, he could almost feel a light breeze drifting over his skin and through his hair.

The quiet was broken by the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw Fog.

“Dan, will you step into my cabin for a minute? There’s something I want to give you.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a heads up--this chapter has some mild violence and descriptions of blood in it

Sometimes Phil had nightmares.

He’d wake up paralyzed by fear, and he wouldn’t know where he was.

Then his fumbling hands would find Dan, usually still asleep. He’d curl up into Dan’s back and wait for his heart to drop out of his throat and ease into a normal rhythm. And in the morning he could tell Dan about his nightmare, and they’d laugh about how strange and silly the narrative was once it was pulled into the light and stripped of emotion.

Phil wished he was dreaming. Wished he could wake up.

Something was coming. Closer, closer…maybe it was already there and just biding its time to torment him.

He had wedged himself in the corner farthest from the door to his cabin. Pushed the bed up against it. Watched.

He didn’t know how long he’d been awake, except that he’d seen the room darken and brighten several times. If he’d slept at all, it had only been for seconds at a time, jolting back to consciousness when the sensation of falling tugged at his stomach.

A pillowcase was pinned up over the one window in the cabin. Light still got through, but hopefully nothing could see in. Whatever it was he had to hide from.

It was so cold. He was wrapped up in two blankets, with only his face poking out. He could feel the rabbit-fast beating of his heart keeping pace with his uncontrollable shivering. Teeth chattering, knuckles white, nails purple. The muscles in his shoulders and neck were clenched so tight. Pain radiated from his skull down his spine.

His eyes played tricks on him. Small shadows moved in corners and crept in under the door. Silhouettes fluttered behind the makeshift curtain.

A shout. Outside. His whole body jolted and a whimper squeaked out of his tight throat.

Loud voices. One loud voice, actually. He couldn’t tell who or what it was, but it was angry. And maybe…scared?

Phil put his head between his knees and dug his fingers into his arms. He needed to make himself as compact as possible. If only he could breach the borders of his separate parts—legs and arms and head and torso—and become one fluid body with a seamless outer shell.

More shouting. Two raised voiced now.

Phil bit into the inside of his cheek until it bled. The metallic taste triggered a strange response in his body. It was like a jumpstart to his senses—overcoming the feelings of  _cold_ and _fear_ that had been blocking out everything else.

He unfolded himself and prepared to stand.

 _One. Two. Three._  
  
He rose slowly from the floor, every muscle protesting. Wobbling on rubbery legs, he made his way toward the door, wincing as his nerves awoke with a feeling of burning static.

His head swam, and the white-hot, overpowering fear still pulsed at the edges of his mind. He kept moving forward. Pulled the bed aside. Guided his shaking arms into the sleeves of his parka and his feet into the hollows of his boots. Deep breaths.

_One. Two. Three._

Phil opened the door and stepped outside.

*

June was barefoot and dressed in their sack dress. It was sopping wet, dripping water from its hem to the ground where it made little divots in the snow. Water ran down their limbs and face. Their brilliant red skin was so shocking against the white of the snow, like a splash of arterial blood—violent, mesmerizing.

The smell of saltwater cut sharply through the clearing.

Fog strode forward and Phil felt the crunch of their boots in the snow inside his bones. Everything was alive—the scents, the sights, the sounds.

They gripped June’s shoulders, shaking them a bit.

“What the fuck were you doing? Are you trying to die?”

June stepped back out of Fog's grasp, mouth tight and an eyebrow cocked.

“I just wanted to take a little swim would you calm the hell down? So uptight, _dear_ ,” they replied, the last word mocking where ordinarily it would have been gentle.

Ash was sitting on a bench. Their eyes moved back and forth between Fog and June but their expression was blank.

The argument continued. It didn’t sound like it was leading anywhere good. Words butted heads, tempers rose, and Phil could feel a disaster incoming.

Fog’s arms danced in the air, punctuating every word as they continued their tirade. June’s arms remained crossed over their chest, but the frenzied tapping of one foot belied their seemingly calm and steady stance.

Phil started to walk toward them. Someone needed to diffuse the situation. It made absolutely no sense to think he was the best person to do that, but there he was. He glanced over at Ash, still seated. Their focus moved to him and he saw them shake their head almost imperceptibly. He kept moving forward anyway. It seemed all his caution had been spent, and he had none left to spare.

“Guys. Hey, can we—”

Fog’s arm flew back without warning and their hand hit Phil square in the nose. It was entirely an accident, but there was still quite a bit of force behind the blow. He let out a squeak of pain and staggered back. Blood hit the snow.

All of a sudden Ash was at his side, one hand on his shoulder, the other at his elbow, guiding him away and toward the bathroom. With a hand cupped over his nose, he looked over his shoulder. Fog was standing still, mouth agape. June started laughing—a high-pitched, reedy sound. Phil turned back to Ash. They still wore a blank, stony expression.

“Oh my god, you really did it now! You’re such a stupid, blundering oaf, you—”

June’s words were cut abruptly short by the crack of a slap. Ash and Phil whipped their heads around.

June had a palm to their face, eyes wide. Fog took a step back, hands up, shaking their head as if to undo what they’d just done.

“I’m sorry!” Their voice was uncharacteristically shrill. “I can’t believe I did that!”

June stepped forward, drew their hand back, and returned the slap.

“Stop!” Ash barked, tightening their grip on Phil’s shoulder.

Before Fog or June could do anything else, the door to Shrub’s cabin swung open. They stepped out, opened their mouth, and let out the most ungodly scream Phil had ever heard. It rose from the bottom of their belly and ripped through their throat. When it ended, the scream still seemed to hang in the air, ringing in his ears and in the atmosphere.

“ _Shut. Up_ ,” said Shrub, voice ragged. They disappeared back inside, slamming the door behind them.

*

Fog and June drifted back to their cabins, heads hanging in shame. In the bathroom, Ash helped Phil wash the blood off his hands and face. His nose hadn’t bled for long. It was a bit sore to the touch but not broken.

“Is it always like this?” he asked, as Ash dabbed gently under his nostrils with a wet cloth.

He could’ve elaborated. He was trying to ask a whole slew of questions in one go.

Were the ghosts always at each other’s throats during the Cold Times (or at least, were Fog and June)? Did June always do reckless things like taking a dip in the deathly cold sea? Had the ghosts come to blows on previous occasions? Had Shrub ever screamed like that before, and how could they make sure it never happened again?

Was it normal for him to have spent an unknown period of time near the absolute peak of terror, a few steps below passing out or pissing himself or losing his mind completely—only to be pulled from that all-consuming emotion all at once, like it had never even happened?

Ash drew the cloth back from Phil's face and twisted it in their hands.

“The same things don’t always happen, but the basics repeat themselves. June always does stupid shit. Fog always gets mad about it. Because being mad is what they do, and because they’re worried and don’t know how to express it properly. Shrub’s always wilted, but sometimes they just…snap.”

“And you?”

Phil knew about Ash’s apathy and detachment—he’d witnessed it plenty—but he still felt compelled to ask.

They opened their mouth, then paused. Their eyes were on Phil’s nose, never rising to meet his eyes.

“I let shit happen. I don’t stop it. Then I try to clean up the mess.”


	13. Chapter 13

Dan stood in Fog’s cabin, holding a piece of paper they had given him.

“I found this in June’s cabin some time ago.”

He decided not to ask why they’d been snooping around in there.

It was a crudely drawn map—greasy black marks on thin, yellowing paper. The lines of its folds were dark brown like they’d been burned into the surface.

There was the sea beyond the woods Dan had arrived in, the clearing with a circle for the fire pit and the cabins and the long buildings represented by rectangles, all neatly labeled. Off to the side was the smaller clearing with the pond. But what really caught Dan’s eye lay in the woods behind the cabins. Among the pattern of little arrows representing the trees were two other marks. Close to the camp was a small rectangle, and deeper into the woods was another larger one. The one closer to camp was labeled “cellar,” but the one further up had nothing written beside it.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a cabin. Much bigger than ours. I ran across it once when I went deeper into the woods than I intended. It appears to be abandoned.”

Dan stared intently at the rectangle, like he could make it transform into a detailed illustration.

“I think you should get away from here and spend some time there.”

Dan tore his eyes away from the map and over to Fog’s perfectly composed face. He couldn’t hold their gaze for long. Were they kicking him out? Had he done something unforgivable? Probably. He hated how much the rejection hurt—the way it made him flush and hollowed out his chest.

“It’s for your own good,” Fog continued, perhaps sensing the effect of their words.

Dan had a distinct feeling that he was just being placated.

“You’ve seen what the Hot Times do to us. I’m sure it’s affected you in negative ways as well. If you put some distance between yourself and the campsite—and us—you will feel better.”

Dan hadn’t been expecting that. He met Fog’s eyes and tried to search them for some sign of deceit. Their gaze was steady, and maybe even…soft?

“I’m not saying you should run away and never return. Nor am I saying you need to steer clear of here until the Hot Times are over. Naturally you will need to return periodically for food. And for some of your ablutions too, I suppose.”

Dan puzzled over their words and the situation at hand. How would fucking off to a cabin in the woods change anything? He didn’t really understand how the Hot Times worked. If the ghost’s camp was the center of its influence, then he supposed it made sense that the further you got from it the weaker the effects. Wasn’t the “Hot Times” just a pretentious name for summer though?

“You need to pack a bag. Bring as much food as you can carry, and some water. There’s a well at the cabin, so you’ll only need it for the journey. I’ll take you there when you’re ready.”

Fog made to leave. A dozen questions were tumbling together in Dan’s head, but one managed to wrestle its way to the forefront.

“Wait—why are you helping me?”

They paused with one hand on the door and turned to him with a frown.

“Why wouldn’t I help you?”

Dan could think of plenty of reasons, including that they’d never seemed to particularly care about him before, but he kept his mouth shut as Fog left.

*

Approximately thirty minutes later, Dan was sitting on his bed, tugging on the shitty zipper of a backpack he’d scavenged from the storage heap.

Inside were thawed out bags of frozen veg, cereal bags sans boxes, and even a loaf of the questionable bread he’d been avoiding since his arrival. He’d decided cans of soup were too heavy (not to mention he wasn’t sure what the cooking setup was at the cabin). If he was going to be coming back for food anyway, it didn’t matter too much what he brought. A water bottle was squeezed in alongside the food.

Lastly, in a separate front compartment, he’d carefully wedged the most important thing—an empty instant coffee box containing every message from Phil. He didn’t take the leaves out and look at them often, but there was no way he was going to leave them behind.

*

Despite having slightly longer legs, Dan had to walk at a fast clip to keep up with Fog. Of course, Fog had—at the very least—fifty percent more muscle mass than Dan, and probably twice the lung capacity as well.

There was no path through the trees, and he wondered what the point of the vague map Fog had shown him even was. Apparently Fog had memorized the way to the cabin, even though they said they’d only been there once. All of the trees crowded around them looked exactly the same to Dan, but maybe to someone more observant and outdoorsy, certain ones served as landmarks.

They’d been walking in silence for about twenty minutes when it occurred to Dan that he hadn’t said goodbye to the others ghosts, or explained to them where he was going. It was okay. He wasn’t leaving forever. Fog could tell them in the meantime, and they were probably mostly too fucked up to care much about his absence anyway.

Time continued to pass as they kept moving forward. The sky was starting to darken and with it Dan’s anxiety-level was creeping ever higher. June’s map definitely wasn’t to scale.

“Are we almost there?” he called out to Fog, rather petulantly.

“What does ‘almost’ mean to you?”

“Like, no more than five minutes of walking left?”

“No.”

How the fuck did Fog expect him to make this journey by himself back to camp periodically? Were they going to offer to come fetch him or bring supplies? Dan was starting to think they were actually just leading him away to kill him.

*

Darkness had fallen, velvety and thick. The stars were clouded over. Dan had to keep his arms out in front of him and take tiny steps to avoid collisions with trees. He could only see by the light of the lantern Fog was holding above their head. Which they’d been holding up for so long Dan’s arms hurt just imaging the effort. At last, they came to a halt in front of him.

He couldn’t see anything even vaguely resembling a manmade structure. But surely it was just through the trees.

“Fucking finally,” he muttered, not-so-under his breath.

For the first time since they’d set out, he was able to catch up and stand next to Fog.

“We’re there, right?”

Fog didn’t speak or move. Dan looked closely at them and saw that their entire body was rigid. The flickering light of the lantern on their face revealed unfocused eyes and a slightly open mouth.

“Fog? Are you okay? Why’ve we stopped? Are we t—”

A high, vibrating howl cut off his words. It started quietly and then rose to a wail. The noise broke and then repeated, again and again. He thought it sounded a bit like a dying opera singer, or maybe a wolf trying to sing. All the hair on his arms stood up, and he tried to mirror Fog’s perfect stillness.

Another howl joined the first, creating a dissonant song. More and more voices joined in, until a whole chorus of ululations sounded around them. Dan couldn’t tell if they were surrounded on all sides, or if the calls were only coming from a few directions. What he did know was that his body felt paralyzed, and the only parts of him that seemed capable of movement were his thumping heart and his lungs that were barely managing to keep air flowing in and out.

Without warning, Fog dropped the lantern to the ground, where the flame was swiftly extinguished. Then, without a word to Dan or a backward glance, they sprinted off out of sight.

Dan’s brain short-circuited. There was a droning buzz in his ears and he couldn’t feel his body. He could have been nothing but a disembodied consciousness floating in space, absorbing sound but incapable of seeing or doing anything else. Even the beat of his racing heart ceased to be felt. The howling stopped but he still couldn’t move.

Then there was a light—far off but weaving closer to him—and for a moment he started to drift back down into his body. But something else was approaching quicker than the light. Something that snapped twigs under its feet and snuffled like it had a bad cold. Something that let out a piercing wail so close this time that he started to shake as if he were freezing instead of overheated and drenched in sweat.

His eyes had adjusted to the darkness just enough that he was able to distinguish a black shape moving amongst the still forms of the trees. The light was gaining on it but not quickly. It wasn’t going to catch up soon enough. They wouldn’t reach him in time.

He closed his eyes and whispered, “Please please pleasepleaseplease…”

Another howl and his whole body jolted like he’d been struck by lightning. Somehow he remained standing.

A _thum_ and a _whoosh_ and a yelp. Dan opened his eyes and the light came through the trees. A very petite person with bubblegum pink skin held a lantern aloft in one hand, a bow in the other.

They looked him up and down and sighed.

“Oh, man. Who are you supposed to be, then?”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains excerpts from a handbook june gives to phil. to distinguish these excerpts from the rest of the text, i've enclosed them in [brackets].

It was late morning and the night that had overslept was just beginning to recede. June woke Phil up in his cabin. Not to drag him out of bed to make snow angels, but to give him something.

It was a handbook. Creased pages and crumpled edges, stained with coffee and who knows what else. Phil could tell that a large section was missing from the back, torn away either purposefully or accidentally. He sat on his bed, flipping through the remaining pages, while June paced back and forth.

 

[ **WELCOME TO GHOST OUTPOST #416!**

  
We encourage you to look at your exile as a new beginning!]

 

“Who wrote this?”

“I don’t know,” said June. He could tell it required a considerable amount of effort for them to speak slowly and calmly. “It was here when we—it was here when I arrived.”

“But why show it to me now?”

They stopped pacing and stood still before him.

“I don’t know how to explain to you what it’s like. The other ghosts…They’re my family. They’re all I have. I had to spend three years alone before Ash arrived.”

“Okay…”

Phil wanted to understand, but his brain was still foggy from sleep. June was staring at him rather intensely and it made him uncomfortable.

“I couldn’t keep them safe,” June said softly, looking away.

“Who?”

“The others. And it’s too late to change things. But! I can protect you, Phil. I will. I just need you to trust me.”

*

[If the provisions are rationed according to these guidelines, a group of up to six Ghosts should be able to survive unassisted for twenty years.]

*

They trudged through the snow. Phil followed closely behind June, deeper into the woods behind the cabins. They’d told him they were taking him somewhere he’d be safe, somewhere the Cold Times wouldn’t affect him as much. For reasons he wasn’t quite sure he understood, he had decided to trust that this was a good idea. The Cold Times were probably messing with his ability to think rationally.

Everything was eerily still. Every so often a clump of snow would fall from the branches of the trees, but the only other sounds were those of their own footsteps and ragged breathing. Despite having lived at the outpost for what had to be many months, Phil wasn’t entirely used to being somewhere so deprived of background noise. No pigeons cooing, no sirens wailing. Cars and crowds and the muffled voices and movements of neighbors in the halls—all gone.

They didn’t speak. There were many questions Phil wanted to ask June. Such as, where are we going? He was concerned that this was just another reckless impulse, like taking a dip in the sea. But June seemed more clear-headed than before, more like themself than they’d been since the Cold Times began.

So he kept his mouth shut behind the scarf wrapped around it.

*

[It is highly advised that all Ghosts keep within the confines of the Safe Zone surrounding the Outpost (illustrated in the map below). Straying beyond these borders may result in grievous injury or permanent death. Ghosts should let Arrivals who manifest outside of the Safe Zone find their own way to the Outpost. The Beacon is provided to allow you adequate time to prepare to welcome them!]

*

Why hadn’t they brought food? If Phil had known the journey was going to take so long, he would have grabbed as much as he could from the kitchen before they'd set off.

Moving through the snow was tiring. His nose and ears were numb, and his fingers burned painfully in the pockets of his parka.

Exhaustion forced them to take a break. They sat beneath a tree, huddled up close together. June pulled down their scarf and their breath hung in the air.

Phil asked the question he should have asked hours ago.

“June, where exactly are we going?”

They didn’t answer right away, just sat with their face set in contemplation.

“It’s sort of like…a safe house, I guess? I’ve only been there once, but I felt more like myself there than anywhere else in this awful place.”

Phil was surprised to hear June describe the outpost as “awful.” They’d always seemed relatively content with their circumstances. Perhaps that was just a cheerful front, put on to protect themself or boost the other ghosts’ morale.

*

[In addition to provisions, we have generously provided an assortment of objects and materials to assist in both work and leisure. The Outpost is also luxuriously equipped with indoor plumbing, and we trust that your life here will be peaceful and comfortable.]

*

Phil must have fallen asleep, because one minute the sun was overhead, and the next the sky was fading to gray. June’s head was on his shoulder, eyes closed and mouth slightly open as they breathed steadily.

“June…June…wake up…”

They raised their head and flopped sideways onto the ground, eyes still closed.

Snow was falling. Phil tried to fight the urge to go back to sleep, but if he slept maybe he wouldn’t be so cold. He put his hand on June’s knee and shook them half-heartedly—one last attempt to wake them up.

They stirred a bit and mumbled into the snow, “Lemme sleep.”

“We need to go…gotta get up…”

“I can’t…I’m sorry, Dove.”

Dove? Maybe they’d said love. Or was dove another one of June’s terms of endearment, like dear and darling?

His heavy eyelids fell before he could think anymore.

*

[In order to ease the transition into this next, exciting chapter in your life, we have provided a Communication Portal that will allow you to contact your Mirror. Once you have become acclimated to your new life, you will find that you no longer need to make use of this amenity.]

*

June was gone. Phil was alone beneath the tree, a light blanket of snow lying over him. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

*

[The Cold Times can be challenging for even the most level-headed of Ghosts, but we encourage you to rise to that challenge! A strong will and dedication to fostering comradery with your fellow Ghosts will help you persevere.]

*

One arm curved around his back, another under his knees. He was lifted up, and he let his head fall against a sturdy chest.


	15. Chapter 15

Dan sat on a lumpy green cushion, on the floor of a cabin about three times the size of his own down at the campsite.

As they had approached the building, the pink ghost—who had introduced themselves as Marsh—had raised their lantern to cast light on four separate structures outside of it—an outhouse, a shower stall with thin wooden panels for walls, a well, and a clay oven. There were also two rusty metal doors leading down to a cellar. Behind the cabin, he got a glimpse of the vegetable garden.

Inside, oil lamps dotted the walls and illuminated the space. A circular wooden table sat low to the ground with more cushions around it, and a double bed occupied the far right corner. Marsh hung her bow and quiver on hooks on the wall, next to others which supported a variety of metal tools that Dan thought looked like medieval torture devices. Cupboards lined the back wall along the floor.

Seconds after they’d entered the cabin, Marsh had swung the carcass off their shoulder and held it up in front of them. Dan got a good look at it for the first time.

It was about the size of an English bulldog, with a similar short snout and slightly bowed front legs. It had thick, dark brown fur with an oily sheen, and eyes that bulged out of the top of its head a bit like a frog’s.

“Alright, I’ve gotta skin, butcher, and salt this, and get it underground. I’ll bring some back up though and we can have a little roast,” said Marsh, making to leave the cabin.

“Wait! So that’s an eek, right?”

They paused just before the door.

“An eek? Oh, are they still calling them that?”

They laughed lightly. Perhaps a bit condescendingly.

“Well, what do you call them?”

“Dinner. Make yourself at home but not too much at home. I’ll be back soon.”

*

Dan didn’t move while he waited for Marsh to return. He was exhausted from the journey and the lingering aftereffects of intense fear. Before long the smell of cooking meat wafted into the cabin. It turned his stomach a bit, but it also made his mouth water.

So when Marsh returned with two chipped plates of eek meat and some lightly charred vegetables, getting some knives and forks out of a cupboard, he didn’t hesitate. The meat was just this side of too gamey, but he hadn’t eaten any of the food he’d packed before leaving with Fog. He felt like he’d been hungry forever. Months of subsisting on meager meals of frozen vegetables and watery soup suddenly caught up to him.

“Don’t eat too fast. If you get sick in my home I’ll kill you.”

Dan couldn’t tell if Marsh was kidding or not. They had a voice and face that gave nothing away. An even though he was over a foot taller, he felt intimidated. He forced himself to chew the tough meat slowly.

“I never thought I’d meet someone like you here,” they said.

“Like what?”

“You’re from the place where everyone’s beige or brown and has a lot of hair.”

“And you’re from the place where everyone’s got random nouns for names.”

The little burst of courage that had fueled his words vanished the second they were out of his mouth.

“That’s really culturally insensitive, you dickhead.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Shut up,” Marsh interrupted. “I’m kidding.”

They grabbed his empty plate and stacked it on top of theirs along with the silverware.

“Gonna give these a shower. You stay here and think about what you’ve done.”

*

When Marsh returned with the clean plates and cutlery, Dan laid his head on the table. He was doing his best not to fall asleep.

Unlike the ghosts down at camp, Marsh was wearing fairly normal clothes—thick-soled hiking boots, baggy trousers with lots of utility pockets, and a loose grey sleeveless top. It occurred to him how odd he must look in his sweat-stained floral print dress.

They sat on the cushion across from him and leaned their pink elbows on the table, chin propped up on their hands.

“I bet Dove was real glad you showed up.”

Dan lifted his head just enough to work his arms underneath it, so he could cross them and rest it on top.

“Who’s Dove?”

A shadow passed over Marsh’s face—the first glimpse of genuine emotion he’d seen there.

“That’s right…it’s June, isn’t it?”

He closed his eyes and nodded.

“Anyway, I’m sure you’ve helped alleviate some of the loneliness.”

“Loneliness?” he mumbled.

“Well, yeah. It’s not exactly a great place to live alone.”

The conversation just kept getting more confusing, and he didn’t know if it was because he was sleepy or if Marsh really wasn’t making any sense.

“Why would they be lonely with the other ghosts there?”

“Other ghosts…I really am out of the loop. Stupid of me to think there wouldn’t be.”

They sat in silence and Dan felt himself falling further into unconsciousness, the flickering of the lamplight fading, the uncomfortable feeling of his face pressing into his forearms disappearing.

“Who’s your person up North?”

A face appeared in Dan’s mind—pale and smiling, eyes squeezed shut with laughter, tip of a pink tongue poking through teeth, delicate hands rising to cover a mouth. He smiled into his arms.

Then a spike of anxiety pierced his heart and he was wide awake. He sat up so quickly his head spun and his vision went black for a second.

“I can’t remember his name. Why can’t I remember his name?”

His voice was loud and high and it felt like everything was closing in around him. He started gasping for air.

Marsh reached across the table and grabbed his hands.

“Hey. Look at me. His name doesn’t really matter right now. You remember _him_ , right?”

Marsh was just a pink blur, their voice rising up from the bottom of a well.

It mattered. His name mattered. If Dan could forget something so easy to remember, there was no telling what other memories he might lose next.

Marsh moved around to him and grabbed his shoulders, shifting his whole body away from the table with surprising strength.

“Bend your knees up and put your head between them.”

He did as he was told, but it didn’t help.

“You need to breathe deeper. Slower.”

How was he supposed to do that?

“Count with me, okay? Inhale…one, two, three, four. Hold it…one, two, three, four…Now exhale…one, two, three…”

Marsh counted for him several more times, and by the fifth cycle he could feel himself starting to calm down. He managed to raise his head and meet their eyes.

“Do you remember his voice? And his face? And the way he feels and the way he makes you feel?”

Dan couldn’t speak yet, so he just nodded.

“That’s the important stuff. And as long as you stay away from the outpost, the rest will come back to you. I promise.”

“But why?” he croaked. “Why’d I forget?”

“It’s this place and the Hot Times. But if you remember him there’s hope, alright? You’re not too far gone, so get a grip.”

“But you think I'll remember his name?”

“Absolutely. It’ll come to you. Have a little patience.”

Dan didn’t want to be patient. He wanted to remember immediately. He could see the words in his mind, different sizes and fonts all reading Dan and…Dan and…Dan and who?

He knew Marsh was right, that the name wasn’t the most important thing. Names and birthdays, eye colors, heights, and hometowns—they were all things even complete strangers could find out about a person. Dan remembered the way he laughed and the way he kissed, that he loved sweets and hated cheese. He remembered the way his shampoo made his hair smell. He could picture him standing naked under the shower, rinsing his freshly dyed hair, the water swirling dark grey around the drain.

It still felt wrong. It still felt like an empty space in his chest, a hole in the puzzle of his memories where a piece was missing.

Now that the panic had subsided, he felt himself fading again. Sleep…maybe if he slept, the name would return to him. It might come in a dream, or he might simply wake up with the knowledge returned to him, appearing as easily as it had disappeared.

Dan was just beginning to accept that maybe he really did need to be patient, and let the name return to him in due time, when a realization hit him.

The leaves. All the leaves he had in his bag. Maybe the name was on one of them.

He sprang to his feet, nearly falling from the sudden change in position, and stumbled across the room to where he’d dropped his bag by the door. His finger trembled, making it difficult for him to work the zipper. He pulled out the squashed box and let its contents spill out on the floor.

Marsh didn’t say anything, just sighed. Dan didn’t care if he looked ridiculous, spreading the leaves out, wild eyes scanning the words written there.

Of course Dan didn’t see the name. Why would he have wasted precious letters on the stones he sent to Dan, with something as unnecessary as the name they both knew? But maybe there was one, just one leaf…

If only he had the leaves of his own messages. It made more sense for Dan to have written the name. But he didn’t.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and let out a scream.

Marsh crouched behind him.

“Man, you really need to sleep before you lose it completely and try to kill me. And then die because obviously I’ll kill you in self-defense.”

“You’re not funny,” he mumbled.

He felt crushed all over again and wished he hadn’t had the idea to look at the leaves at all.

“I’m hilarious and you’re annoying. And I get that you’re scared and sad, but I could have left you to die in the woods, so show me a little respect.”

“Sorry,” he said, the word empty and automatic.

“No apologies. Get up and get in the bed.”

He wobbled to his feet again and made his way over to it. God, he needed to rest.

“What about you?” he said, wondering where Marsh was going to sleep.

“In the bed, obviously. It’s big enough.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not flirting with you, so calm down. I’m very much in love and I’m too antisocial to be anything but monogamous.”

“Same,” said Dan, flopping onto the bed. It was far from the most comfortable one he’d ever slept in, but compared to the one he’d been using lately, it was heavenly. There was actually room to fully extend his legs.

He fell asleep almost instantly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thaaaanks for reading these words that i've written


	16. Chapter 16

The first two things he noticed upon awaking were that he was gloriously warm and completely naked.

He sat up in bed and looked around. Without his glasses he couldn’t see much except the orange glow of a fire across the room and the vague shapes of furniture.

Then a figure separated itself from a dark corner and approached him. Before he could move or think of what to do, the person was extending a hand toward him.

“Your glasses.”

He reached out hesitantly and took his glasses. Once they were back on his face, he looked up at the person who had offered them.

They had deep emerald green skin and a grey knit hat pulled over a head he suspected was completely bald. They were tall—taller than him and Dan, surely—and a bit gangly. Their brows sat low and slanted downward, giving them a sad appearance, but the eyes beneath them were gentle.

“I’m sorry I had to remove your clothing. It was soaking wet and you were dangerously cold.”

They gestured over to the fireplace, where his garments were hanging from hooks on the mantle.

“They should be dry now, though. I’ll step outside while you get dressed.”

*

Once he was fully clothed, he opened the door a crack and peered out. The green ghost was standing by a woodpile a bit to the left, adding some logs to the top. They turned around when the door creaked open, and smiled before walking over to join him inside.

They peeled off their puffy coat to reveal a thick, black, cable-knit sweater and freed their feet from a pair of clunky, brown snowboots. Densely woven grey trousers completed the look.

Across the wall from the bed was the fireplace, brick with a large black metal frame with vents set in the center, the orange flames dancing behind a glass door. There was a long slab of a table on the side of the cabin adjacent to the fireplace, with three spindly chairs around it, and occupying almost the entire wall behind this table was a rack of metal shelves nearly overflowing with canned food and jars of preserves, as well as a few boxes of dry goods like pasta, rice, and cereal. Pots, pans, plates, bowls, and utensils lined the shelves below the food. Miscellaneous other supplies and tools—including a snow shovel, fire tongs, and a fireplace skillet—occupied every corner. Finally, in the center of the room sat a metal bathtub. A couple of towels were folded up on the floor beside it, and a little porcelain dish held a yellow, cracked bar of soap.

He sat on the edge of the bed and fiddled with the fraying edges of the topmost blanket—a quilt with pinwheels in pastel colors. Beneath it was a heavy blanket of dark brown fur, and below that a thinner, somewhat threadbare sheet.

The green ghost pulled one of the chairs away from the table and brought it close to the bed, to sit facing him. They sat with their legs up and crossed on top of it, knees sticking comically far out off the sides of the chair.

He knew that they must have been the one who’d found him half-conscious in the snow and carried him here to their cabin. He felt grateful but also shy.

“I’m Umber,” said the ghost.

“But you’re clearly green,” he replied, trying to ease his anxiety with a little levity.

Umber smiled. “And I suppose your name must be White?”

“Nope, it’s…”

His voice trailed off as his thoughts came to a halt. It was like he’d been running down a hallway that had abruptly ended at a blank white wall.

“It’s…”

Umber waited patiently. He focused on a point over their shoulder. It was on the tip of his tongue…

What was his name?

He checked the history of his brain’s browser for a list of most recently considered names. Umber, Dan, June, Shrub, Ash, Fog, and further back into the rest of his family and friends. The list went on but none of the names were his.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

He thought he should’ve been more bothered about it, but he didn’t feel like a different person despite not remembering his own name. It was unsettling, but there was a sense of calm detachment separating him from his discomfort. 

“Well, that’s alright. It happens. It slipped your mind, but I’m sure it’ll return.”

“Does it really, though? Does that happen?”

“I once forgot my name for an hour or so. I thought my name was Marsh—that’s my partner—until they set me straight.”

He nodded. Dan almost felt right. He knew that wasn’t his name. He knew who Dan was. But it felt strangely tempting to just give in and call himself Dan.

Umber stood up.

“Are you hungry?”

As if on cue, his stomach audibly growled.

Without another word, they set to work.

*

They ate in silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though he did feel self-conscious about the pace at which he was consuming his stew.

He finished well before Umber, and even though he felt it was a bit rude to interrupt them while they were still calmly eating, a question was burning his tongue.

“Someone else was with me in the woods—June. Did you see them? Are they okay?”

Umber swallowed and looked up to give him a small smile.

“June is fine, I’m sure. As fine as they can be right now. They’ll be back at the campsite. That place is like a magnet.”

He nodded, his thoughts already shifting to a new question.

“You said you had a partner, Marsh. So I was wondering, can I ask where they are?”

Umber finished their stew and stacked the bowls.

“Down South.”

“But you remember them…and you’re still…yourselves?”

Umber nodded.

“Yes. It’s because we left. We got away from the campsite before it could change us. They live in a cabin away from there too.”

He puzzled over that. How had they even known to leave? Maybe they’d found the cabins accidentally, or maybe the missing pages from June’s handbook mentioned them. There were many things he might never understand.

*

Umber took the dishes outside to clean them with snow. They brought them back along with a pot filled with more snow to melt for water. 

He started spacing out again. The cabin faded away, Umber with it. If he closed his eyes he could almost imagine his body was somewhere else. He could be back home in bed. It had been a long time since he was there, and yet he felt like he’d only just left.

His reverie was interrupted by a loud scraping noise.

Umber was kneeling by the bed, reaching under it to drag out a heavy stone basin. It was deep and half full of water. They reached under again and dragged out a plastic tub, popping off the red lid.

“Why don’t you come here so I can show you this?”

He got up and went to crouch by the bed with Umber. Up close he could see that the container was filled with white sand—so white that he almost mistook it for snow at first glance.

“I didn’t get to do this last night because I didn’t want to wake you, and apparently Marsh was occupied too. But now…”

Umber scooped up a handful of sand and poured it into their mouth.

“What are you—”

They turned to him and opened their mouth, revealing that the inside walls and their tongue were coated in sand. Grains stuck between their teeth, and he ran his tongue over his own in sympathetic discomfort.

The next thing Umber did was even stranger. They took in a deep breath through their nose and plunged their head into the water.

He watched with alarm as bubbles rose to the surface. Should he do something? Try to pull them out?

Before he could come to any decision, they raised their head back out of the water, gasping a bit and blinking rapidly as droplets ran down their forehead and into their eyes.

He was about to question them when a voice came out of the basin.

He yelped and fell back, catching himself on his hands. The voice was clear, but sounded far away, like the speaker was at the bottom of a well. The surface of the water rippled in time with the words.

“Hey, actually I took in a stray too. Found him wandering the woods pissing his pants over the local fauna. Okay guy, though. Hairy head as well."

He grabbed Umber’s arm and shook it a bit, his excitement bubbling up and overflowing.

“Is it Dan? It has to be Dan, right? Please ask them if it’s Dan!”

“Why don’t you ask them yourself?” said Umber.

They definitely had too much confidence in him. He was so overwhelmed by competing emotions stirred up by two thoughts—it’s definitely Dan, and you’ll finally be able to speak to him again, and it’s not Dan and it’ll never be Dan and the letdown will destroy you.

But he had to know. So he smothered his fear and tried to will his body to stop shaking.

“I’m just going to tell Marsh to give us a minute so they don’t worry about why I’ve stopped replying.”

Sand in their mouth, head in the water—they made it look so effortless. Then it was his turn.

Umber told him how to do it. He had to fill his mouth with the sand. Swallow a bit (“Only a little bit though—not all of it.”) and let the rest coat his tongue and the inside of his mouth. Then he had to take a deep breath and submerge his head in the water.

“You’re going to speak while you’re in there. I know that sounds like it won’t work, but you just have to wait till you feel like your face has broken through to the surface. You’ll have to keep your eyes closed, but you’ll feel it. You’ll be able to breathe again, for a bit, and talk.”

On his first attempt he managed to inhale half the mouthful of sand. Umber rubbed his back while he retched and coughed up sand onto the floor.

Second time he managed to get the sand bit right. Having it in his mouth was as uncomfortable as he thought it would be. It tickled the back of his tongue and made him gag, but he coped.

Things fell apart when he put his head in the water. He felt like he’d stuck his head in the sea rather than the basin. There was too much space—he could feel it stretching out all around him. He was overcome by an intense fear that he was trapped in an endless void of water. He was going to drown. It didn’t occur to him to just pull his head back up out of the water. He didn’t even remember that his body was safely on land.

His lungs started to burn and he opened his mouth to scream for help—which only let the water in. Two hands grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and pulled him back.

His head was out of the water, but he still felt bewildered. He couldn’t breathe, and he didn’t know where he was.

A hand slapped him on the back, and he started to cough up the water. The room around him began to come back into focus, as much as it could when he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

He could breathe.

“You’re okay. You’re alright. The first time I tried I got confused and nearly passed out from holding my breath for so long. I was all alone, too. I could have drowned.”

Hearing that did not make him feel any better.

A voice rose out of the water again.

“Umber, you still there? Are you alive? Stop ignoring me.”

The voice didn’t sound concerned, just mildly annoyed.

Umber touched his shoulder gently and said, “I’ll do the talking for now, if that’s alright?”

He nodded. He never wanted to stick his head in the basin again. Maybe he would if he got confirmation that Dan was on the other side. But only then.

Umber went back in. He felt like they were under for far too long, although it was probably only about a minute. He reminded himself that apparently they could breathe once they broke the surface—whatever that meant.

Finally they sat up, wiping the water from their face.

“It’s him. It’s your Dan.”

His heart felt like it could burst. He didn’t think he’d ever been so relieved in his life. A good thing was sometimes better when preceded by a bad thing, he was learning. He’d never had to be without Dan for so long, and the intense heartache caused by the separation made just knowing Dan was okay—without even seeing or speaking to him—feel like a miracle.

What happened next was even better.

A familiar voice responded, “Phil! You’re there, right? It’s you?"

_Phil_. His name was Phil. Of course.

“Dan, yeah! It’s me. I’m here!” he said, forgetting that Dan couldn’t hear him.

“I’ll let him know,” said Umber. “And maybe next time we contact them you’ll be ready to do it too.”

Phil nodded. He wanted to speak to Dan himself, but he knew he couldn’t brave the basin right then.

So Umber went back in.

Not long after they’d pulled their head out, a reply came. It wasn’t Dan, and Phil felt a pang of disappointment.

“He begged me to let him try. Got water all over the floor, so now I’m gonna have to refill soon. I hope Phil is a better houseguest.”

Phil thought maybe he should’ve been a little defensive on Dan’s behalf, but all he could do was smile. He pictured Dan, full of determination, doing his best to speak to him. It couldn’t have been easy, but he’d managed it. Dan could manage anything once he found the willpower and figured out the best approach.

Umber passed on a message to Dan that Phil was alright and wondering how he was. Marsh replied that Dan was fine (“I mean he’s alive—thanks to me—so what does he have to complain about?”). Phil asked Umber to tell Dan goodnight, and then Dan himself replied again.

“Goodnight, Phil.”

His voice was deep and soft and Phil’s eyes welled up. It wasn’t until that moment that it dawned on him that he hadn’t heard Dan’s voice in ages.

Umber and Marsh talked for a bit more, but Phil didn’t pay attention to what Marsh was saying to Umber—now in a quieter, easier tone.

Phil should’ve been beside himself with joy, but his thoughts were muddled. Too many feelings all vying for his attention, twisting his stomach and squeezing his heart. One feeling was giddiness—a heart-flipping, lightheaded kind of happiness that reminded him of the early days with Dan, when he could barely believe what was happening and was so afraid it could end at any moment.

Another was guilt—that he couldn’t do more, that Dan had spoke to him but he had failed to speak to Dan, that he still felt so powerless to change anything about their situation. And he was supposed to be the optimist. Even after getting back in contact with Dan, he was running low on hope.

Most all, it just wasn’t enough. Maybe he was just ungrateful. But he needed more. He needed Dan, and it seemed that the small bit of him he’d got had just reopened a wound.

And whirling around with all of it was a desperate, anxious urge to do _something_. To make some kind of progress, take whatever steps necessary to fix things. Phil had to hold it in. Night had crept up on them and it was too late to do anything right then. He didn’t even know what could be done. But the urge was an itch under his skin.

*

“You can sleep in the bed again.”

“Are you sure?”

Umber had gently shook Phil awake after he’d fallen asleep sitting up with his back against the wall.

“Yeah. You’re my guest.”

“You won’t be uncomfortable?”

“No. Besides, I sleep in that bed every night. I can handle sleeping on the floor for a bit.”

Umber’s kindness was another thing eating at Phil. He didn’t really deserve it. He knew his presence was an inconvenience. He also knew thinking like that was self-pitying. Unless it was true? Everything was too much, and he was too exhausted to sort his thoughts out.

Phil accepted the offer and crawled into bed. He told himself he’d speak with Dan as soon as he was able.


	17. Chapter 17

Dan woke up on the floor, one arm completely numb from being sandwiched between it and his body. He’d fallen asleep there while Marsh was talking to Umber, and apparently they hadn’t bothered to wake him before going to bed.

But he wasn’t bothered by any of it because yesterday he’d gotten to speak with Phil. Rather, he’d spoken to Phil—barely—and then the two ghosts had acted as go-betweens.

Phil’s name had come back to him as if it had never slipped his mind in the first place. Like it had been poised and ready, waiting to dive off the tip of his tongue and out of his mouth. As soon as the voice from the basin said they had found a person in the woods (“not like us—with a head of hair”), he remembered. Phil’s face appeared in his mind and his brain assigned it a label. _Phil._

He’d been so tired after his two brief visits to the basin. It was a full body exhaustion, similar to the feeling of having spent an entire day swimming under the summer sun. His body was warm and heavy. His eyelids refused to stay open and his muscles wouldn’t cooperate enough to keep him upright.

The day leading up to it had also been tiresome, but for different reasons. He’d woken up early with a pair of pink arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. Marsh awoke seconds later, quickly extracting them.

“Sorry,” they mumbled, chasing the word with a yawn. “I used to sleep next to someone even more unnecessarily tall than you every night. It’s been ages, but I guess a sleeping body never forgets.”

The rest of the day had mainly consisted of Marsh ordering him around, assigning him chores so he could “earn his keep.” Weeding the garden, washing dishes, carrying things—like cuts of eek meat wrapped in paper and rusty gardening tools—back and forth from the cellar to the cabin for seemingly no reason. The only upside was that Marsh had scrounged up some clothes for him to wear, so he had finally been able to abandon the sweat-stained, mud-streaked dress he’d arrived in.

The new clothes weren’t ideal. The pair of too-short pants—the only ones even close to the right size that Marsh had—were made of an itchy grey material that rubbed against his legs like sandpaper. The only pro was how lightweight and breathable the fabric was. As for a shirt, he wound up wearing a pillow case with holes for his head and arms.

By the time night fell, Dan was buzzing with frustration. It wasn’t the chores themselves that annoyed him, but Marsh’s bossiness and the heat of the sun wetting every inch of his skin.

But when Marsh let him use the basin, every bit of his aggravation melted away. The sand in his mouth and throat was rough and irritating. Grains worked their way between his teeth and his gums bled. Being in the water somehow felt both like he was trapped in a claustrophobic underwater cave, and lost in the open ocean all at once.

Phil was okay though, so it was all worth it.

*

Dan sat up and stretched, his shoulders clicking as he rolled them. He waited for the feeling to trickle back into his rubbery arm. Marsh was gone, probably out seizing the cooler morning hours. There was a bit of bread and a jar of fruit preserves out on the table. He went over and helped himself to breakfast.

All the leaves where still on the ground where he’d spread them out the day before last, like they’d been shed by an invisible tree. Marsh hadn’t mentioned them at all, not once demanding Dan clean them up, which he found odd.

He walked over and knelt down to pick up the instant coffee box that had housed the leaves. A crumpled piece of paper fell out. He scooped it up and smoothed it out on the floor.

An illustration of a dog with its head in a vase, flowers scattered, a chicken in the corner. _Le chien regrette sa décision._

It was the page Ash had torn out of their book. He must have slipped it into the box at some point, though he couldn’t remember doing so. He tried to pick the paper back up, but it fluttered out of his hand, landing picture side down on the floor.

The other side was a blank page. Except it wasn’t. There was something written on it—a faint message in soft, loopy letters.

_Ash,_

_If you’re reading this, then I found the tunnel. Wait for me in the cellar tonight, in the spot where I left this book. I will come for you._

_I love you._

_Cricket_

Ash. Cellar. Tunnel. Cricket. The words almost glowed.

*

“That’s a bad idea.”

Those were the first words out of Marsh’s mouth after Dan showed them the note and explained what he thought it meant—that there was a way for them to go up North.

“But it sounds like it’s a tunnel that leads to the other side! I could see Phil again. You could see Umber.”

He felt like he was trying to convince Marsh that drinking water was a good idea. Or that oxygen was essential for human life. It just seemed so fucking obvious.

They shook their head.

“I already know there’s a passage between North and South. It’s not some big revelation. I don’t know where it is, but I know it exists.”

Dan had bitten all his nails down to the quick over the past few weeks, and now just chewed on the skin of his fingertips. He paced back and forth, trying to formulate his thoughts into coherent sentences. That was difficult when a siren kept going off in his brain, blaring _what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck._

“But you’ve…you’ve been here for so long. And you’ve never even looked?”

“I haven’t looked because it doesn’t matter. Someone else used the tunnel and it didn’t end happily, alright? Nothing does here. It’s not supposed to.”

There was a biting, angry edge to Marsh’s voice, much colder than their usual flippant irritability. It was a tone that clearly expressed that Dan should back off, but he was so tired of being in the dark. He was tired of vague, elusive replies. He was tired of feeling like a child out of his depth, surrounded by adults who didn’t trust him with the truth. He was tired of being in this fucking place with these fucking crayon-colored, bald bastards.

“What does that even mean? ‘It’s not supposed to.’ Why not?”

Marsh flopped backward unto the bed and spoke to the ceiling.

“It’s a prison, Dan. We’re exiles. Ghosts.” They raised an arm and waved their hand lazily around. “This was a guard’s cabin, and I bet one of these days they’ll send a new guard.”

Dan stopped pacing and pulled the raw tip of his thumb out of his mouth. There was some kind of coolant spreading throughout the hot engine of his brain. A prison? Well, he supposed that made sense. It was either that or purgatory or hell or…

His mind caught up with the rest of what Marsh had said.

“What happened to the last guard?” he asked, tentatively.

Marsh sat up. There was a moment of silence as they met his eyes with an intimidating intensity.

He gulped and looked away.

“You don’t need to know, and it’s better if you don’t.”

Okay, so Marsh was possibly a murderer. Umber too. And if the outpost was a prison, for all he knew everyone he’d met was a murderer. That should’ve scared him more than it did, but he only felt a slight shiver run down his spine. Marsh and the rest of the ghosts had probably had plenty of chances to kill him and Phil, but they hadn’t.

Dan sank down to sit on the floor. The conversation was taking a lot out of him. He wanted a bath. With a bath bomb, a face mask, and a sleepy Phil pleased to embrace him when he stumbled into the bedroom, skin hot as a space heater from the water.

He wanted to go home.

“Why would me and Phil be sent here? What did we do?” he mumbled into his hand, fingers back between his teeth.

Marsh sighed. The sound was long, low, and weary. They slid off the bed and sat next to him on the floor, leaving a tense space between his body and theirs.

“Honestly? Probably nothing. I bet it was just a mistake. People from your world don’t end up in places like this. Interdimensional abduction and transportation is messy. Some jackass must have targeted the wrong plane and snatched you losers instead.”

A mistake. Dan’s whole life had been turned upside down because of a _mistake?_ He’d lost everything—nearly lost Phil—because of a _mistake?_

It was almost funny. It was considerably infuriating. But most of all, it was a heavy stone dropping into his gut, because it didn’t matter. The mistake was made and it couldn’t be undone. It was random and wrong, and made him painfully aware of the undeniable fact of his own insignificance in a universe much larger than he could ever have fathomed.

“I just want to go home,” he whispered, choking a bit on his words. “Please. Let me go to Phil. Let me try.”

Silence thickened the atmosphere in the cabin, like the humid heat was being intensified. If he wasn’t so emotionally depleted, Dan might have found it uncomfortable.

Marsh crawled under the bed and dragged out the basin.

“I think we should talk to Umber. They can help me explain all this shit to you. They’re better than—they’re better at that whole patience and kindness thing.”

“Can I talk to Phil, too?” Dan asked meekly.

Marsh patted his knee awkwardly, and nodded when he lifted his eyes to meet theirs.


	18. Chapter 18

Phil sat on the bed, listening to one side of the conversation between Umber and Marsh. It wasn’t easy to follow, as he could only hear Marsh’s replies, and not whatever Umber was saying when they stuck their head in the basin.

He was trying to piece together what was happening from the bits he could hear. Apparently, there was a tunnel, and they had a better idea now of where it might be. Marsh said it was in a cellar.

Umber said something, and Marsh replied, “No, I doubt it’s ours. Too risky with the guards at the time. Like they even knew about them.”

Umber went back in and came back up.

“I don’t fucking care.”

In again.

“No.”

And again.

“So what?”

Umber stayed under for a disconcerting amount of time after that. When they lifted their head out, they were gasping for air.

“Are you okay?” asked Phil.

They nodded and wiped some of the water from their face.

No reply from Marsh came right away. Phil and Umber waited in tense silence. He wanted to ask a few questions, but it didn’t seem like a good time. Marsh seemed quite upset, if the increasingly agitated tone of their replies was anything to go by. Umber didn’t look particularly pleased either.

They waited.

Umber sighed and reached for more sand, preparing to go under again. Just as they were poised over the basin, Marsh’s voice filled the room.

“If you want to be stupid, that’s fine. I’ll be stupid too. It has to be the wine cellars, so we should head there. Did I mention this is stupid? Bye.”

*  
Phil and Umber bundled up and headed out into the woods. Umber promised to explain some things along the way, but ten minutes into the journey, all Phil had learned was that they were headed to the wine cellar near the campsite to look for a passageway between North and South.

That information alone was exhilarating. It meant getting to Dan. But Phil didn’t want to get his hopes up, particularly since Marsh had seemed so opposed to the idea. If it was as simple as finding a tunnel and walking through it, why would they be so reluctant? Surely they wanted to see Umber again. Umber themself didn’t seem thrilled about the whole thing either. Their resigned demeanor left Phil confused. He didn’t know if his stomach was fluttering from excitement or anxiety.

A few more minutes of quiet trekking passed, and Phil worked up the nerve to break the silence. He chose his words carefully, as if Umber was a deity who would only answer three questions. He decided to go for the one that was weighing on his mind the most.

“Umber, why doesn’t Marsh want us to go to the cellar?”

Umber paused for a moment, then kept walking. They spoke without turning to look at Phil.

“It’s complicated…or maybe it isn’t. They’re afraid it’ll be dangerous.”

Phil thought back to the diary Ash had shown him. How June had told C there was a door to the other side, but it was too dangerous to go there.

“Dangerous how?”

Umber stopped walking and turned to face him. Their eyes traveled over his face and they opened their mouth as if to speak, then closed it.

Out of nowhere, Phil thought about how isolated they were. Sure, the camp and all the other ghosts couldn’t be that far off, but there in the woods, in that moment, it was just him and Umber. Surrounded by white snow, and a grey sky laid over the bare, black bones of leafless trees, and the wide skirts of towering conifers. Phil had no idea how to get back to camp or Umber’s cabin. The landscape in every direction looked the same. He didn’t know Umber, not really. June had led him into the woods and abandoned him. What was preventing them from doing the same? Or worse?

Umber spoke, interrupting Phil’s spiraling thoughts.

“When I lived at the campsite, there were three people there—me, June, and Cane. Down South there was Marsh, Dove, and Yew.”

“Me?”

“No, Yew like the tree.”

“Oh. Okay.”

It was a bit intimidating to be facing Umber like he was, face-to-face with a only a short distance between them, their unwavering gaze locked in on him in a way it hadn’t ever been before. He shivered and rubbed his arms, looking around like he was taking in the scenery, to avoid continuing to make eye contact with them.

“Somehow, Yew and Cane found a passageway from North to South. They never told anyone else where it was, but Yew traveled through it and joined everyone down South.”

“But that’s great!” Phil interrupted. He was struggling to see the downside.

“It was…for a bit. Marsh told me they all got drunk, and Yew and Cane retired to Cane’s cabin early. In the morning they never came out.”

Umber looked away then, off into the trees like Phil had done just moments before. They folded their arms around themself.

The woods were vast and cold and Phil felt small. He felt his heart and his hopes sinking. Umber’s voice was laced with a weary sort of pain, like there was a wound that had healed a long time ago, but they still bore the scar.

“Marsh and Dove didn’t bother them until the afternoon. Let them have their time alone. Dove got worried though and knocked on the door. No answer. So they went inside.”

Phil knew. He knew before they even said it.

“They were dead. We don’t know for certain that it was because Yew crossed over, but there seemed to be no other explanation. They died in each other’s arms.”

*

It felt strange to be so close to the campsite again. Phil could see the backs of the cabins through the trees. Umber cleared snow from in front of a door set in the soft incline of the hill. He thought about the ghosts. Did they wonder where he was? Were they worried? How were they getting on?

“Alright, let’s go in.”

A set of concrete steps led down into the wine cellar. At the bottom, a wooden door opened inward. The air inside the cellar was cool, yet felt oddly warmer than above ground. It was completely dark. He felt Umber brush past him, and suddenly there was light. They went around the room, striking matches and lighting candles in sconces.

Racks of wine bottles and other spirits lined the walls, the only gaps between them being the spaces for the lights. Umber moved around the perimeter, peering at bottles.

“What are we looking for?”

“A door, I guess.”

Phil joined them, but didn’t feel like he was being much of a help. Despite the candles the cellar was still quite dark. He squinted at dusty bottles with faded labels, bending to look between them and seeing only shadowy nothingness.

Umber let out a soft  _whoop_ and called Phil over. They stood in front of a smaller rack with rows of red wines, against the back wall of the cellar. Phil noticed now that it was much less wide than most of the other racks. There were sizeable gaps between it and its neighbors, and it was shorter too.

The rack was the only one small enough to be pulled away from the wall, and the only one with enough space around it to shift it forward.

“It’s more obvious than I expected,” Umber mused, “but I’m not complaining.”

Moving the shelf was no easy task. They tried to do it with the bottles still on it, but it proved to be rather heavy, and several bottles ended up slipping out. They shattered on the floor, spilling rivers of blood-red wine at Phil and Umber’s feet.

They took the rest of the bottles off the shelf. Phil managed to break another one by dropping it. Umber didn’t admonish him or say anything at all—they just kept setting bottles off to the side. Shards of glass crunched beneath their boots.

Once the shelf was shifted away from the wall and off to the side, a wooden door was revealed. Unlike the weathered, pale wood of the one leading into the cellar, this one had been stained a deep brown. Umber reached out for the tarnished, silver doorknob and wrapped their hand around it.

“Fuck,” they muttered.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“It’s locked.”

Phil’s heart plummeted. He hadn’t even realized how high it was floating after they'd discovered the door. Maybe they could break it down? Probably not.

Umber closed their eyes and mumbled. Phil could tell they weren’t really talking to him.

“Would Yew have it? Marsh said one of the later ghosts unlocked it too…so who has it? Maybe one of the guards has a spare one…”

“Guards?”

Umber looked up at Phil like they’d forgotten he was there. They sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve to be dealing with any of this. But I think I know a place where we might be able to find a key. Well, a few places, but we can take it one at a time.”

*

They were going to dig up a grave. A shallow grave—Umber stressed—like that made it better. Phil had become increasingly desensitized during his time at the outpost, but this was still a little much.

They had to walk all the way back to Umber’s cabin. On the way, they explained to him that there had been guards who monitored the prisoners at the outposts from afar. (“Prisoners?” “Well, you call them ghosts.”) Phil didn’t ask why Umber knew where one of them was buried. He didn’t want to end up in his own shallow grave from knowing too much.

They retrieved shovels and walked a few meters into the woods behind the cabin. Umber inspected the trunks of several trees until they found one with three gashes cut in its bark.

“They’re right in front of this one. We’ll have to clear the snow first.”

They said “we” but Umber did all the work while Phil hovered awkwardly with a shovel in his hands.

This was the part of the movie where Umber would reveal that they were actually digging Phil’s grave. They would push him in—maybe hit him over the head with the shovel first for good measure—and suffocate him with dirt and snow.

“The ground is frozen. Obviously. It’s just one thing after another.”

Umber jumped on the blade of the shovel like a pogo stick to force it into the ground.

“Do you want my help?”

“No. It’s fine.”

Maybe Phil was supposed to hit Umber over the head? Otherwise the extra shovel seemed redundant. He didn’t want to do anything of the sort, but he couldn’t force the idea out of his mind.

Another unwelcome thought was worming its way into his brain. Digging up a grave meant digging up what was inside the grave. A body. A corpse. The only dead people Phil had ever seen were embalmed and prettied up in an attempt to make them appear like they were just having a peaceful snooze in their caskets. He’d seen dead animals. Birds decaying on pavements, other repulsive things that his eyes quickly darted away from. And he’d seen plenty of fake dead bodies in movies and on television. He didn’t want to see this.

Dirt was piling up on the snow. Umber had tossed aside the shovel and was digging with their hands—green arms rising out of black earth like shoots sprouting at the end of winter.

“I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to see the body,” said Phil. There was a slight quiver in his voice and his throat tightened.

Umber leaned back on the balls of their feet. They wiped their palms on their thighs and stood up, wobbling a bit.

"That's okay. You don’t have to look at anything. But you know, there’s no body. It’s been a long time. The only thing left here is bones, and—hopefully—a key.”

Phil nodded but still took a step back. There was the slightest flicker of morbid curiosity in him that made him want to move forward and watch the bones be revealed. It was like an archaeological dig, almost. But not quite.

So he didn’t move closer when Umber muttered, “Here we are,” and he looked away when he saw their arms shifting to lift something out of the ground.

He was hoping it would be over quickly, but it wasn’t. The key might not be there amongst the bones, after all. Umber had said something about “a few places” where they might find the key. Might.

“Yes!”

Phil looked back to see Umber standing up. They hurried over to him.

“Put your hand out.”

Against his better judgment, he did.

Something light and caked in dirt dropped into his palm. He picked it up and rubbed some of the soil off between his fingers.

The key was much smaller than he’d expected. It looked more like the key to his own apartment than the heavy, ornate skeleton key he’d been picturing.

“This is it?”

“It had better be.”

*

There was a tense, heart-stopping moment as Umber struggled to stick the key in the hole and turn the doorknob. It was fully dark outside by the time they made it back to the cellar, after stopping over at the cabin to grab lanterns for the journey. After everything, it could be the wrong key.

It wasn’t. Something metallic clicked, the knob twisted under Umber’s hand, and the door swung inwards to reveal a long hallway. Umber held their lantern up and Phil tried to peer over their shoulder as they stood still on the threshold.

Then they reached forward and felt along the wall. There was a click and the hallway was flooded with light. Fluorescent tube lights lined the ceiling. The walls were white and unassuming. Umber’s hand lingered by the light switch.

“Electricity. They’ve got electricity. All this time…”

Umber stepped forward into the hall and Phil followed. It was just wide enough for them to stand next to each other, but not without their shoulders bumping, so he kept a few steps behind them.

The lights beaming down on Phil hurt his eyes and triggered a dull throb in his head. The slight buzz and flicker seemed so alien in comparison to the gentle glow of flames he'd grown accustomed to.

The passageway wasn’t at all like what he’d imagined. Marsh had used the word “tunnel” to describe it, and that led him to expect something cold with slimy stone walls, or dirt walls in a shaft they'd have to crawl on their bellies through. Not a boring, featureless hallway that would be at home in any soulless, corporate setting.

At the end of the hall was another door. No keyhole beneath its polished brass doorknob.

“You open it,” said Umber. They sounded…scared? Excited? Phil couldn’t pinpoint the emotion.

His own emotions were running high. This was it. He wasn’t sure what _it_ was, but he still felt it vibrating in his very bones, swirling in every cell of his body. Whatever lay on the other side of that door—it was going to make or break him. Because it was either a way to Dan or it wasn’t.

Phil’s hands trembled as he pushed the door open.

If the tunnel had been a surprise, what lay on the other side of the door was even more befuddling.

It was a little lounge. There were leather couches, little tables with laminate tops, and overstuffed bookshelves. Framed under glass on one wall was a huge map. At the opposite end of the room was a door exactly like the one they’d come in through. Umber and Phil wandered the room wordlessly, taking everything in.

He read the spines on some of the books. Titles like _The Docile Prisoner_ and _New Techniques for Pacification and Assimilation_ caught his eye. Others were in German, French, and languages he didn’t recognize.

“Umber, what the hell is this place?”

“It’s just…a space between both sides, I think. A place that’s not North or South. So the guards could go from one place to the other. Or maybe just meet-up. Debrief. Socialize…” they laughed harshly and ran a finger along a shelf, inspecting the dust it collected.

“Not North or South…like the water in the pond? Like the basin?”

Umber sank down onto one of the couches and ran a hand over their face.

“This room is to the pond what those lights above us are to candles.”

Phil was facing away from the other door when it opened, and Umber’s eyes were closed. No squeaky hinge or heavy footstep alerted them to what was about to happen.

He didn’t realize they weren’t alone until he heard a familiar voice.

“Found you.”

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it. this is the last chapter. 
> 
> big warm fuzzy thanks to the handful of people who read this as i was posting it and left kudos and comments. i can't begin to explain how much that means to me. and to anybody reading this in the future, hello! thanks for stopping by. 
> 
> (also, just a heads up, this chapter includes an animal attack/bite, and reference to vomiting.)

It wasn’t a running into each other’s arms moment. It was more of an _are you real?_ moment, a warily regarding each other moment. Tentative steps forward that finally ended in an embrace.

When Dan walked into the room and Phil turned around, he was taken aback by how changed he was. He still looked like Phil, but a version of Phil Dan had never seen. The shape of his body was obscured by heavy layers of clothing, but Dan could see that he’d lost a significant amount of weight. His cheeks were sunken beneath now painfully prominent cheekbones. All the angles of his face were sharper, and shadows like bruises lay beneath his eyes. He had more facial hair than Dan had ever seen him with (and more than Dan had thought him capable of growing). His hair had grown out of its style into limp, thin locks with long roots.

But he was Phil, undeniably. Dan knew that he must look different to Phil, as well. He’d lost weight, his hair was a matted mess, and patchy facial hair roughened his cheeks and jawline. When their bodies came together, Phil rested his head in the crook of Dan’s neck. His hair was unpleasantly greasy against Dan’s cheek. He smelled terrible. Dan assumed he did, too. Probably worse from how sweaty he was.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Marsh and Umber sitting with their arms around each other, heads buried between their impossibly close bodies, like two turtles trying to share the same shell. He closed his eyes and held Phil tighter.

*  
Umber pulled books from the shelves and let them drop to the floor. Marsh tore pages in half and ripped covers from spines.

“Maybe don’t destroy _all_ of them,” said Umber, while sweeping a row of books off a shelf. “Some of them might be helpful.”

“Oh, well,” said Marsh, crumpling up a handful of pages and tossing it over their shoulder.

Dan and Phil joined in on the destruction. Phil sat on the floor, methodically ripping pages from books one by one, while Dan grabbed sections and tore as many pages as he could together at once.

The whole thing felt a bit silly to Phil—like a subdued tantrum—but it also felt _good_. He wanted to destroy it—that room with its sterile lack of personality, its atmosphere devoid of compassion, its fucking electricity. The edge of a page sliced his thumb, but he ignored the sharp sting and kept going. A drop of blood smeared on the paper and defiled it further.

Marsh pulled a utility knife from one of the many pockets of their pants and flipped the blade out. They stabbed it into one of the leather cushions and gutted it, foam springing up out of the gash. They sliced another line across the first to form an X, then moved on to the other cushion. Then they tossed the knife aside and reached for their belt.

Umber grabbed their shoulder. “I know we’re all enjoying a little bit of catharsis, but if you piss on that couch right now, I will never speak to you again.”

Marsh huffed and turned to Dan.

“Get that frame off the wall for me so I can smash it.”

Dan took the map down but didn’t give it to Marsh. He looked at it intently, carrying it over to the couch where he sat down.

The taut concentration on his face reminded Phil of the look Dan would sometimes get when he was deep in the editing process for one of his videos.

He sat beside him. “What is it?”

Dan had the map resting on his thighs, and he shifted it slightly so it lay over both their laps.

“It’s a map of North and South, and everything is symmetrical except for this one bit.”

It was indeed a map of both sides. Every little detail on each side was drawn in eerily, meticulously identical marks. North wasn’t depicted on top of South, but beside it. The two sides were like the wings of a butterfly. There was the room they were in, the hallways leading to the cellars. The campsites, the cabins further back in the woods, the ponds in the clearings, the sea. On each side, up a bit from the guards’ cabins, were coves where the sea met the land again. Anything further beyond that was cut off by the top of the map.

Dan pressed a finger to the glass over the cove on the North side. “Look at that little dot in the water. There isn’t one on the other side.”

Phil squinted at the black dot. Miniscule type beside it read _Transporter_.

Phil’s heart leapt in his chest.

“Do you think..?”

“Maybe.”

Marsh walked over and stood in front of them.

“What are you two whispering about? I wanted to smash that, remember?”

Phil pointed eagerly at the map. “Look, it says ‘transporter.’ Did you know about this? Could it be…?” He couldn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t want to voice his hopes and somehow jinx them.

Marsh didn’t say anything, just stared at the dot. Umber joined them, kneeling down to get a better look at the map.

They exchanged glances and Phil watched a silent conversation take place. Underneath the frame covering their legs, Dan squeezed his hand.

*

Umber agreed to take them to the transporter. Insisted, really.

“I don’t know how to get there from the shore. I didn’t even know there was a shore there. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get you home or anywhere. But we can try.”

Marsh was going to stay behind. Dan didn’t know the full story behind why it was bad idea for them to cross over to North, but he knew it was a point that couldn’t be argued with the ghosts for the time being.

“This is goodbye, I guess. If you’re lucky,” said Marsh, shaking his hand. It was a weak handshake with no conviction. Their palms barely touched.

Dan wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what. He felt a pressure to express how he was feeling to Marsh, but how _did_ he feel? Grateful? Relieved?

He settled on a joke. “Thanks for not letting the eeks eat me.”

“It was a good decision.”

Marsh offered him a small smile, then turned to Phil.

“I don’t know you, but you seem alright. Good luck.”

“Thanks? You too?”

Marsh had already moved on to Umber.

“I’m going to wait right here. I’m not going to leave this room till you get back.”

“I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

“Well, you’d better make it quick if you really don’t want me to piss on this couch.”

Umber laughed and bent to whisper something in Marsh’s ear. Dan and Phil both looked away as they embraced.

*

“Fuck, it’s cold.”

Those were the first words out of Dan’s mouth when they exited the hallway into the wine cellar up North. He’d felt the chill before they’d reached the door, but at first it had seemed like a blessing after the heat he’d been enduring. Standing in the cellar with his bare toes curling on the stone floor, he didn’t appreciate it any more.

He wrapped his arms around himself, body already shaking violently. He might as well have been naked for how thin his clothes were

Phil shrugged out of his coat and made to give it to him.

Dan’s teeth were chattering, but he still tried to protest. “No. You need it.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve got layers on.”

Dan shook his head but Phil was already behind him, pulling his arms away from his body and guiding them into the sleeves. Once the coat was on, he came back around to face Dan, and zipped it up to his chin. Dan could feel some of the heat from Phil’s body still trapped inside the lining.

“There. That’s better,” he said, patting Dan’s chest and smoothing his hands over the puffy front panels. He glanced down at Dan’s feet and then back up to his face. “You need shoes, though.”

Dan was not about to let Phil offer him his boots and insist his socks were thick enough for it not to matter, but he was spared that interaction by Umber.

“You two wait here. I’ve got an extra coat and some boots at my cabin. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

They slipped out, lantern in hand. Phil sat down by the door to the hallway and patted the floor next to him.

“Come sit.”

Dan joined him and they were both quiet for a moment, their shoulders pressed together, their breathing synchronizing.

Dan turned to look at Phil and saw that he was studying his face intently, eyes darting between his eyes and lips. Dan thought he looked sad, or maybe just wistful.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Phil sighed. “I want to kiss you, but I haven’t properly brushed my teeth since we got here.”

“Gross.”

“Remember when we tried to kiss in the pond?”

“If I’d known about your complete disregard for dental hygiene, I would never have suggested it.”

“As if you’ve brushed yours either!” Phil cried, smacking Dan’s arm.

Dan kissed him lightly on the cheek. “That’ll have to do for now.”

He watched as Phil shivered, the cold air seeping under the cellar door finding its way to him his layers. Dan unzipped the coat Phil had lent him and pulled his left arm—the one next to Phil—out of its sleeve.

“What are you doing?”

“Get in,” said Dan, holding the coat open. Phil scooted closer to him and stuffed his right arm into the empty sleeve. Dan moved closer still, until he was half sitting on Phil’s lap. He struggled to zip the coat back up over both their bodies.

“You’re gonna break it,” Phil said with a giggle, shifting to slide his shoulder behind Dan’s.

“It’s tight, but we’ll make it fit.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He grunted, tugging the zipper up over his chest. It wouldn’t go any further than just below his collarbones. He let his hand fall to his side.

It wasn’t comfortable, at all. Phil’s knee was pressing into the underside of his thigh, and his bony elbow was poking him in the ribs, right behind where his left arm was pinned to his side.

It was fucking hot, too. The goal had been to warm Phil up, and they’d certainly achieved it. The stench of their combined body odor was impressively potent, and Dan wondered if it was bothering Phil as much as it was bothering him.

Apparently Phil’s thoughts were elsewhere, because he pressed his forehead against the back of Dan’s head and whispered in his ear, “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

Dan knew what he meant. All that discomfort—he would’ve endured it endlessly because it let him know that he and Phil were together again. They’d been apart for so long, and now they weren’t. He wanted to be as close to Phil as humanly possible. They weren’t close enough.

*

Umber doubled-over in laughter when they returned and saw Dan and Phil bundled up in the coat together. Phil had dozed off while they waited and awoke with a start, elbowing Dan roughly in the side.

Dan swore at him and fumbled to unzip them, while Phil struggled to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. Once they’d disentangled themselves, Dan suited up in the coat and boots Umber had brought.

When Umber opened the cellar door to lead the way out, Phil was surprised to see daylight. It was night when he and Umber entered the cellar and found the door to the hallway, and he hadn’t realized how much time had passed.

Umber consulted the map and led them through the snowy woods. Phil reached out and grasped Dan’s gloved hand with his own. He was afraid if he stopped touching him for too long he’d disappear.

They walked without speaking. Phil’s stomach grumbled audibly, then Dan’s joined in.

“Sorry, I didn’t think to grab any food,” said Umber.

“That’s okay,” said Phil.

He was already fantasizing about all the food he could eat when they got home. So many things he’d been deprived of. It was worth the wait. He’d probably eat too much too quickly and make himself sick.

Phil realized he had just thought about _when_ they got home, not _if_. There was no certainty that they’d be able to get there, but he believed. He had to believe or he would just lie down in the snow. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. He had Dan again. They could live in the room between North and South to stay alive, maybe venturing out now and then for short periods of time. It would be livable. He had Dan. But he wanted more. He wanted home and normalcy. He wanted his life back.

*

“Do you think we’re almost there?” said Dan.

“Well, we’re definitely past the cabin now, but I don’t know the scale of this map, or if it’s even to scale.”

Phil’s body was tired, but his mind was buzzing. Thoughts and fantasies bounced off the walls in his brain, colliding and tangling into a jumbled mess of desires. Clean sheets, clean clothes, hands greasy from pizza, lips salty from popcorn. Hot showers, baths with fizzing bath bombs. Dan’s lips and hands on his body, his on Dan’s. The blue glow of a laptop screen, the dark, reflective eye of a camera. The voices of his friends and family, voices of characters on television. The sounds of London, a shave and a haircut. He wanted it all.

*

When the first howl sounded, Phil thought it was Dan. He’d never heard Dan make a sound quite like it before, but Dan was certainly capable of the volume. It sounded so close. Dan dropped his hand and Phil turned to him.

“Are you o—”

Dan wasn’t okay. His face had gone slack, eyes wide, pupils darting back and forth. Up ahead, Umber had frozen. They turned around and stepped close to Dan and Phil.

“Don’t move,” they whispered.

Another howl—louder than before. Phil covered his ears reflexively. It was a mournful sound. A hungry sound. It was quickly joined by an accompaniment of other voices, a whole choir that seemed to be circling them. Phil couldn’t see anything when he looked out at the trees, but something had to be there.

At first there were breaks in between the cries, but then they began to overlap, one starting right before the other finished—an endless, awful wailing. It made him feel sick. Before he knew what was happening, he had fallen to his knees. He pressed his head to the ground, hands still over his ears. He needed the sound to stop. It had to stop or something terrible would happen. His brain would implode, his body would rip itself apart. He couldn’t bear it.

Somebody was tugging at his arms. Two people, actually. Umber and Dan were dragging him to his feet.

“We need to go,” said Umber. “Come on, Phil.”

The howling had stopped. Phil hadn’t even realized it until he was upright, swaying on his feet. It was quiet in the woods again.

“Now,” said Umber, and they were going, Dan’s hand on his back, urging him forward.

He saw something out of the corner of his eye. Something moving. No, he was just confused. He was disoriented and they were walking too swiftly, nearly running.

When the thing pulled him to the ground, his first thought was that he had tripped. He handed flat on his chest and got a mouthful of snow. It was only when it tugged on his leg again and he heard Dan scream, that Phil understood that something had grabbed him. He felt an intense pressure around his calf and then a sharp pain.

It had to be an eek, of course. He was only able to see its face for a moment—wild, bulging eyes, flared nostrils—before Umber’s boot collided with it and sent it tumbling back, yelping in pain. The next thing he knew, Phil was being urged onto Umber’s back and they were running through the trees again.

Phil could smell the sea before he saw it. Umber and Dan didn’t stop running until they hit the sand at the edge of the woods. They both staggered to a stop, and Phil slid off Umber’s back. Dan was on his hands and knees, gasping for air, his face red from exertion. Umber was on the ground as well, a hand over their heart.

“Leg…let me see..” they said between gulps of air as they crawled toward Phil.

He rolled onto his side and let them push up the red, knit leg of his pants. He couldn’t see the bite well because it was on the back of his leg, but he could see the blood at its edges, smeared across his pale skin.

“It’s not deep,” Umber said softly, sighing in relief. “It doesn’t look too serious.”

They grabbed a handful of snow and pressed it to his leg, cleaning around the wound. Phil winced at the cold sting.

“Does it hurt?”

“Only a little.” The pain was more of a dull throb. The snow and the exposure to the cold air numbed it even more.

Dan let out a small, pained whine. Phil adjusted his glasses, noticing that one of the lenses had cracked, and saw that he was crying.

He reached out for his hand.

“Look, Dan. We made it to the cove. We’re almost there.”

The beach was somewhat rocky, dropping down an incline to deeper water. A floating dock drifted by the shore. There was a metal canoe tied to one of its mooring arms.

Phil wasn’t sure where “there” was, because he certainly couldn’t see anything that looked like a transporter on the beach. He just didn’t want Dan to cry anymore, and he didn’t want to start crying himself.

“It’s out there in the water,” said Umber, pointing.

Phil squinted. His lenses were scratched and dirty, and the crack down the middle of the left one didn’t help matters. Out in the water, almost hidden by the cliffs curling around the far edge of the cove, was an outcrop. It was flat and wide with some kind of small structure on it.

_Transporter. Home._

*

Phil limped a little as they walked down the beach, leaning on Dan perhaps more than he really needed to. There was one oar in the canoe, and they didn’t protest when Umber claimed it and sat on the one bench seat near the front of the boat.

Dan sat closer to the back, and then guided Phil down into the canoe. The way it rocked when he stepped into it had nausea swirling in his stomach and the back of his throat. He sat in front of Dan, between his legs, and closed his eyes.

This was it then. They were really leaving. Phil believed it wholeheartedly. So why did he feel like something was amiss?

Then their faces were there in his mind’s eye—bald heads and bold colors. He sat up straighter and opened his eyes—a cold, anxious feeling dripping through his body.

“I never got to say goodbye.”

He felt Dan shift slightly behind him, but he didn’t speak.

“They won’t remember you, Phil,” said Umber. “They’ve probably already forgotten.”

A wave of deep sadness flooded his chest. Dan gave him a little squeeze with his thighs and wrapped an arm around his stomach.

“Do you think things will ever change for them?”

“I don’t know.”

Phil leaned back against Dan and closed his eyes. He swallowed and fought down the seasickness and melancholy swirling in his gut.

*

Getting out of the canoe was almost worse than getting in. Phil had to cling to Dan, and then nearly sent them both toppling into the water when he slipped on the wet rock.

A tall, egg-shaped, silver pod stood before them. It was crusted with salt and barnacles along the bottom, like the stone beneath it. He looked up and read the placard hanging above its curved, silver door.

Interdimensional Transporter for Carbon-based Lifeforms  
Enter Coordinates of Location or Select “Return to Point of Origin”  
CAUTION: One Occupant at a Time!

A control panel was set in the middle of the door. There was a tiny LCD screen and dozens of silver buttons with numbers and letters and symbols Phil didn’t recognize.

Dan grabbed his arm and shook him slightly.

“Fuck, Phil! It’s real! We found it!”

Phil loved the way Dan sounded—giddy and excited, almost childlike in his enthusiasm. He hadn’t heard him talk like that in a long time.

Phil turned to Umber and asked, “Does ‘point of origin’ mean going back where we came from? Home?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen one of these before, but…I also don’t know any coordinates we could input to get you there.”

“We’re doing it,” said Dan. “I’m not getting back in that fucking boat and going back to that fucking place.”

Phil nodded. Then he thought of something.

“Umber, couldn’t you bring Marsh here? Then you two could go home, too!”

Umber looked away, back to the shore. They bit their lip, clenched and relaxed their jaw.

“We were sent here for a reason. Going back isn’t safe for us. But someday, somewhere...”

Phil wanted to cry. It wasn’t _fair_. He wanted them to be as happy as possible. He owed them so much. Dan wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Phil knew he understood.

“Don’t worry about us,” said Umber, their own eyes brimming with tears. “We can see each other now, in that room. We can touch. It’s been ages.”

They pulled Phil away from Dan, into an embrace.

“Thank you,” they whispered in his ear.

*

Umber pressed the button for them. There was a mechanical whirring sound and a hissing noise as the door opened outward. The inside of the pod was drab compared to its shiny exterior. Nondescript beige floor and walls made out of some cheap, dull plastic material. A single, ominous chair was attached to the floor in the center.

“You go first,” said Dan, lightly pushing Phil forward.

“What? Why?” Phil knew they couldn’t get in the transporter together, but there was no reason why it should be him going first.

“Just do it.”

“But why? Let’s…I don’t know. Rock-paper-scissors?”

“Phil, get in the fucking pod before I shove you in there.”

His heart was racing. He wanted to grab Dan and throw him into the transporter. Either way, they’d be making the journey alone, though. So he held his breath and stepped over the threshold. The floor squeaked underneath his boots.

“Promise you’ll get in right after. Promise you won’t stay here.” He felt a bit frantic. His body was trembling.

“Why the fuck would I want to stay here?” said Dan, angry and incredulous.

_Because sometimes you don’t take care of yourself. You don’t value yourself the way you should. You don’t know what you deserve._

“Just promise.”

“Okay, I promise. I’ll be right behind you.”

The whirring recommenced and the door began to slowly close. Phil sat on the chair, gripping the seat with both hands.

“I love you,” said Dan, right before it shut completely.

*

Everything was darkness. He was in a void. His body was weightless. The borders between it and the void were blurry.

A brain appeared before him, pink and glistening, an aura of purple light pulsing around it. It was much larger than a human brain would normally be—more like the size of a whole body. It was Dan’s brain. He recognized it as easily as he would Dan’s face.

He drifted closer to the brain, or maybe it drifted closer to him, or they moved toward each other.

He was gripped by an urge to touch Dan’s brain. He wanted to run his hand over its wrinkled surface and sink a finger in between the folds.

He reached out, and his hand flickered like a lightbulb, his veins the glowing filament. The brain was warm and wet to the touch. He ran a finger along a groove and then pressed it in. He pushed it in all the way up to where it joined his hand and then pulled it out. A shimmering strand of light ran from his fingertip back into the fold. Sparks and trails of light darted back and forth over the surface of the brain.

He pressed the tips of four fingers in, then the thumb, and reached deeper. His whole hand disappeared. He kept going into the bottomless wetness until he was almost up to his elbow. He could feel the organ pulsing around him, the firm, smooth walls growing hotter like he was approaching a molten core.

Then he reached an obstruction. Something cold, hard, and jagged. Something that didn’t belong.

He needed to get it out of the brain, out of Dan. He managed to dislodge it. He started to pull his arm back out, shielding the brain from the sharp object by keeping it in his fist, where its edges pressed painfully into his palm.

When he freed his hand a beam of light erupted from the crevice it had occupied. It was so bright it forced his eyes to close. When the inside of his eyelids was dark again, he opened them.

Dan’s brain was gone. He opened his palm and it was empty.

_Dan?_

His voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away rather than from his body.

His hands were flickering again. Then they went completely dark. There was no more of him that he could see. His tongue was ballooning, filling his mouth and blocking his throat. His bones were lengthening, his invisible body stretching. There was a rush of wind past his ears. He must have been moving incredibly quickly through space—so quickly that it was going to tear him apart.

He was scared and then he wasn’t. The pain faded. Was he dying? It wasn’t so bad. He just wished he knew why Dan had disappeared so suddenly.

Just as he was losing consciousness, he was blinded by a bright, burning light. His skin was on fire, his stomach swooping as he dropped into a freefall. He tried to scream but couldn’t pull any air into his lungs.

The light dimmed. His back hit the bed, head and shoulders hanging off the side. He slid onto the floor and opened his eyes to the bedroom ceiling.

*

Only seconds after Dan closed the door to the transporter behind Phil, it dinged like a lift arriving at a floor.

He pressed the “Return to Point of Origin” button. His finger was shaking only just slightly. The door swung open once more, revealing a now empty chamber and chair.

“Do you think that was too fast? That was way too fast, right? He shouldn’t be gone already, right?”

“Get in, Dan. Don’t leave him waiting.”

The idea of Phil home or who-knows-where, all by himself and not knowing when and if Dan would arrive, was painful enough that he hurried into the transporter and planted his ass in the seat without another thought.

“Take care, Dan.”

“You, too.”

The door closed.

*

He was sitting at a table. He couldn’t see the table or the chair he was sat on—they were both invisible, seamlessly attached to the blackness all around. There was no floor beneath his feet. He floated through the void.

There was something on the table in front of him. A basket. He could see it clearly, despite the darkness, like it was illuminated from within. Soft orange light pulsated inside and all around it.

He reached out to pull the basket closer. He couldn’t see his hands put he could feel them make contact with it. He slid the basket across the unseen table with his unseen hands, and peered inside.

There was a creature inside. Its shape kept shifting, so he couldn’t get a handle on what exactly it was. There was dark hair and pale skin. It was warm to the touch, and he could feel its heartbeat.

Phil.

The small thing was Phil. He scooped it out of the basket with both hands and watched it change, all its skin rippling and tugging in different directions, amorphous and strange. It wasn’t pretty. He would die for it.

The table titled in space and the basket slid off, tumbling into some unknown abyss, some nothingness. Dan could feel himself sliding on the seat of his chair, but he couldn’t grab onto it or the table while he was holding Phil. There was a great lurch, like they’d hit a pothole and he sensed that the table had fallen away.

Any second he would slide off the chair, or it would be ripped out from under him. If that happened he might lose his grip on Phil. It was already difficult to hold him when he kept changing shape.

Dan did the only thing he could think to do. He opened his mouth and put him inside. Swallowed.

He could feel Phil wriggling all the way down his throat. It was intensely uncomfortable, and he had to fight the urge to cough or vomit and expel him in some way. But he knew that Phil would be safe inside him. He fell off the chair into nothingness.

He didn’t feel or perceive anything until suddenly he was coming to, face down on the carpet in their gaming room.

*

Dan ran up the stairs, calling for Phil. Phil ran out of the bedroom, calling for Dan. They met in the lounge and started screaming. Happy screaming—grabbing onto each other, jumping up and down, getting so lightheaded they had to collapse on the sofa or they would’ve fallen to the floor.

They were quiet, then, holding each other, breathing. The room was spinning and Dan closed his eyes. He opened them and they were still there. They were home.

Phil shot upright, leaping off the sofa and out of Dan’s arms. He looked panic-stricken and started flailing about.

“Dan, everyone must think we died! We’ve been gone forever! Oh god, I need to call my mum right now. Oh my god—”

He ran out of the room before Dan could stop him, hurrying down the hall to their bedroom.

When Dan arrived a few seconds later, Phil was sat on the bed, staring down at his phone that was still tethered to the wall by its charger. Dan was struck by how out of place he looked, with his dirty clothes and scraggly hair, sitting on their relatively clean, comfy bed.

“It’s September thirteenth,” he said, slowly, not looking up.

Dan went to join him, sitting as close as possible on the long edge of the bed.

“So?”

“It was September when we disappeared. September tenth. I know because we had that meeting at IRL that morning.”

“Are you saying we’ve only been gone for three days?”

Phil tore his eyes away from his phone. He reached out to cradle Dan’s face in his hand.

“Those were the longest three days of my life.”

*

“What do you want most right now, Philly?”

“I want…I want a shower. I want popcorn. I want you. I want to sleep for a thousand years.”

“I think I can help you with some of those.”

They were lying side by side in bed. They’d kicked off their boots and stripped off their coats and dirty clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor.

“It wasn’t a dream, right?” Phil asked softly.

Dan turned to face him. Pulled him close.

“Look at me, Phil. Look in the mirror. It happened.”

“And this isn’t a dream now?”

Dan reached over and pinched his nipple. Phil squealed and swatted his hand away.

“Excuse you!”

“I pinched you and you didn’t wake up.”

“Because I’m already awake.”

“Exactly.”

*

Tired bodies made their way to the bathroom. Stood beneath a stream of hot water. Cleansed skin and teeth and hair.

Tired bodies made their way back to bed. Under sheets. Curled close together. Fell asleep.

In the morning, they woke up exactly where they’d laid down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again for reading!
> 
> [ like and reblog on tumblr (if you want) ](https://velvetnautilus.tumblr.com/post/177240417415/velvetnautilus-fractured-reflections-chapter)

**Author's Note:**

> velvetnautilus on tumblr :)


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